By DAVID BERTOLA
dbertola@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1621

If small-business owners haven't begun exploring the ins and outs of health-care reform regulations, they should start doing so.

At the same time, they will be learning more details about their workers' personal lives.

"To put it bluntly, it's going to be nightmarish for small-business owners and employees to keep up with the regulations," said Bob Graboyes, an economist and senior health-care adviser for the National Federation of Independent Business, a nonprofit representing small and independent companies.

"It'll be time consuming, confusing and costly," he said.

Graboyes said more regulations will be rolled out in the coming years.

Looking to 2014

Everything will be in place by 2014, But starting Sept. 23, the law takes effect for insurance plans that cover dependents to cover policyholders' children until age 26.

"We don't know what the effects of that will be other than it will make it more costly," Graboyes said.

John Arensmeyer is founder and CEO of Small Business Majority, an advocacy group based in Sausalito, Calif. He said keeping kids on the plan until age 26 is good for business owners and employees.

However, he said, "There's no question costs are a huge issue, and over the long haul people will be concerned about that. But a lot of it is confusion."

And thus, there's a need for education.

"People know this is going to affect them, but they want to learn more," Arensmeyer said.

He anticipates small businesses, which pay an estimated 18 percent more for similar insurance products that larger companies buy, eventually will see costs come down.

"The administrative burden that produces 18 percent of extra cost will go away when we have a health insurance exchange set up," he said.

The exchanges nationwide - one per state - will create a pool of small businesses with up to 100 employees and the nation's self-employed, the combination of which totals about 65 million people. Employees can log into the exchange and choose the best plan.

Margaret Moree, director of federal affairs for The Business Council of New York State Inc., has spoken to small-business groups across the state. She said the bill requires employers to document and know things about employees that they haven't in the past, such as things that are tied to household income.

Seeking more information

While the boss knows what each employee is paid, Moree said he or she may have no idea what a spouse earns or even does. But there are aspects of the bill, she said, that will compel this kind of information.

As an example, employers with 50 or more employees will be penalized if an employee is eligible for the federal subsidy tied to the federal poverty limit. For a family of four, she said, that's $88,000.

"To avoid a penalty, and to ensure he's paying affordable coverage, they'll look at household income, not the personal wage," Moree said, adding that the employer "will have a sense of what's going on in the household."

Mandates on employers

If an individual loses subsidized coverage (Medicare or Child Health Plus, for example) they must enroll in the company's insurance plan.

"I dare say every time I talk about this, they have no idea if an employee has a disabled child or a spouse on Medicaid," Moree said.

"The bill put mandates on the employers to really bring them much more into the employers' lives, which hadn't previously been the case," she said.

Moree suggests business owners check to see if they are available for a small-business tax credit. It can help offset the cost of coverage, she said, and is available to those with up to 25 employees. The smallest companies with 10 or fewer employees could be eligible for a tax credit of up to 35 percent of premiums, she said.