Employment provisions are inseparable from a country’s legal framework, regardless of the industry within which a facility is operating. Laws affecting employment in the United States are no exception to the abovementioned rule, as all companies and organizations feel the significant impact of legislation. One of the most influential and critical laws is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, commonly referred to as the Affordable Care Act or simply the ACA.
The main purpose of the law is to protect ordinary Americans from inequalities in the health-care sector. The central option for coping with this challenge is the provision of equal access to health-care insurance by making this insurance more affordable. At the same time, it aims at improving the quality of provided care, reducing the rate of people without health insurance, and decreasing health-care costs. Therefore, the primary idea behind the Affordable Care Act is to support all citizens of the United States so that they do not have to save money for lifelong treatment. Instead, the focus is on adequate governmental support (AFL-CIO, 2017).
The specificity of the Affordable Care Act is that it offers options not only for individuals and families but also for employees and employers. Thus, it affects the leadership of companies. In this case, it is essential to note that only small businesses—those with fewer than 50 employees—are affected by ACA provisions due to the existence of the Small Business Health Options Program (“Small businesses,” 2017). According to the provisions of this program, small businesses may choose up to four levels of health insurance coverage for their employees based on the employer-employee ratio of covering insurance costs—from 60%/40% to 90%/10% (“Enrolling in SHOP marketplace health insurance,” 2017).
Due to the differences in coverage plans, the ACA is a factor in several challenges for leadership. First is the necessity to promote equal access, to the greatest possible extent, to health-care services. In choosing from among several coverage plans, the challenge is to explain the factors that contribute to differences in employer support. Another issue is the necessity for developing an accurate educational program so that the abovementioned decisions are not perceived as discrimination.
In order to address the leadership challenges mentioned above, it is paramount to understand that there are two groups of stakeholders—internal and external. Internal stakeholders involve facility staff and management, while external stakeholders are investors, customers, and representatives of legal authorities. In the case of cooperating with external stakeholders, overcoming the potential issues is not complicated. Operating in line with legal provisions, providing exceptional quality of services, and emphasizing stable performance are the best options for maintaining necessary alliances with them. On the other hand, when it comes to internal stakeholders, the challenges are even more significant.
In any event, there is a universal strategy appropriate for coping with potential issues, building alliances in the workplace, and maintaining them: communication between a leader and employees. The most relevant way to communicate with the internal stakeholders is to launch an in-service education program aimed at eliminating the risk of conflict-related to misunderstanding ACA provisions and their influence on employment.
Although an in-service education program is an efficient way to foster the development of bonds between internal stakeholders, making a program of this type of operational requires a significant planning effort. In this kind of endeavor, it is critical to keep in mind adult learning principles. This means that learners should know the goal of the program, all information presented should be relevant and easily applied to practice, and significant attention should be paid to autonomy and self-direction (Knowles, Horton III, & Swanson, 2015).
From this perspective, to begin with, it is imperative to determine the objective of the program. In studying the impact of ACA provisions on employment, it should be evident that the central goal is to improve understanding of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its specificities for a particular facility. The program should aim at addressing the needs and satisfying the interests of the staff and management of a health-care facility. In this way, these two groups of internal stakeholders are the target audience of the program.
In addition, the educational program should address relevant topics that are applicable to practice because adult learners are not the only goal- but also relevance-driven. For instance, some topics that should be covered are the following: specifics of the law, coverage, and access to insurance, the status of employees according to the ACA, enrollment rules, eligibility for subsidies, differences between coverage plans and the drivers for choosing a particular plan, etc.
In order to make the program efficient in addressing the topics mentioned above, it is imperative to include only relevant educational materials. At the same time, it is critical to make the mode of instruction engaging due to the self-direction of adult learners and their need for motivation to participate in educational initiatives. Therefore, a combination of lectures and materials is the best method of instruction for this program. Finally, it is essential to ensure that the material is understood. For this purpose, preference should be given to such methods of assessment as surveys and checks of understanding instead of exams or other formal assessments because they make more sense for adult learners and in-service education.
References
AFL-CIO. (2017). Health care. Web.
Enrolling in SHOP marketplace health insurance. (2017). Web.
Knowles, M. S., Horton III, E. F., & Swanson, R. A. (2015). The adult learner: The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development (8th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Small businesses. (2017). Web.