Small employer - health benefits

[Church Treasurer]

 A small employer (church) with less than 15 W-2 employees offers health benefits to their full-time, salaried employees.  They have two hourly employees that work about 30-35 hours during a 9-month period of time.  My understanding was they would need to be offered health benefits.  Do you agree and could you provide regs to support this?

[Flyboyjohn]

ACA does not require any employer of any size to offer health insurance to any employee.

ACA says if the employer is large enough (ALE) it may want to offer coverage to certain full-time employees to avoid penalties (ESRP).

Since this employer is not an ALE they don't have to offer coverage to any employee and can certainly choose to exclude certain employees if they voluntarily offer coverage to others.

[Peter Gulia]

Beyond Flyboyjohn's point about circumstances that might not attract an excise tax under section 4980H of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, the church might want its lawyer's advice about whether a provision or condition of a group health insurance contract (if any) obligates the employer to offer coverage to the employees asked about.