35
thePeorian.com
The Present
In addition to the individual
mandate, employers with 50
or more full-time employees –
individuals who work 30 or more
hours a week – must offer health
insurance by 2015 or face high
fines.
While Ryan said the idea is
that more companies will offer
insurance because of tax incen-
tives, he thinks some employers,
such as restaurants that do not
typically offer coverage, may cut
employees or reduce hours in
order to avoid having to provide
insurance.
Wyman, when it comes to big-
ger businesses, said he does not
see the act changing much when
it comes to health insurance.
“
What I’ve found without excep-
tion is that these clients already
cover their employees to the best
of their ability,” he said. “They
aren’t going to have to change
their benefits to meet require-
ments.”
Already meeting the require-
ments comes down to two main
factors, Wyman said. One, a
moral obligation to provide ben-
efits for their employees and two,
businesses have to offer insurance
in order to get the most qualified
people and stay competitive.
One of the groups that will be
most affected by the new laws
are the college-age demographic,
Ryan said. Under the ACA young
adults are now
allowed to stay
under their
parents’ insur-
ance coverage
until they are
26,
which was
a huge selling
point for many,
Burmila said.
Rahmell
De’Kwan
Brown, a 21
year-old the-
ater major at
Eureka College who will be on
his mother’s insurance plan until
he graduates in May 2014, agrees
there will be difficulties ahead for
current students.
“
It’s gonna hit us hard,” Brown
said. “Especially for the ones who
are putting in 18 hours of school
on top of a lot of the extracurricu-
lar activities and (then) expect-
ing us to find a job somewhere
in-between. That is going to be
pretty difficult in
the case of health
insurance and I
just kind of hate
(
to think of) the
repercussions
for those people
who are unable to
pay for the health
insurance. What
happens to those
people? That’s
kind of scary to
think about.”
Continued on page 36
Colleen Sunich, a professional theatre technician, spent the summer at Corn Stock Theatre helping with plays at the
tent and works part-time at Illinois Central College. She and her husband Jared Voelker, a graduate student at Bradley
University, hope the Affordable Care Act will mean health insurance that is less expensive than what they pay for now
since neither gets benefits from an employer.
Rahmell De’Kwan Brown
