To get credit for offering "minimum essential coverage," employers must offer the coverage in such a way that workers can really sign up for the coverage.
Otherwise, workers can say they have no access to MEC and apply for Affordable Care Act exchange plan premium tax credit subsidies, according to officials at the Internal Revenue Service.
In some cases, if the workers apply for, and get, ACA exchange plan premium subsidies, the employer may have to pay large ACA "employer shared responsibility" penalties, even though the employer appears to offer some kind of theoretical access to health coverage.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
