Resolving Healthcare Issues In Compliance With The Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act

Compliance With the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Midwest Education is an American manufacturer and supplier of educational materials. The company has focused on the learning tools and systems used in technology, science, and business classrooms. Midwest also offers manuals, books, videos, hardware, and software used in technology education, business applications, and instructional development. There are three major divisions of the company: Manufacturing division, Transportation, Service, and Maintenance division, and Creative Development division. The company’s headquarters is located in Kansas City, and the manufacturing plant is located on the outskirts of Kansas City. The transportation, service and maintenance division has its headquarters in Texas and other branches located in Phoenix and Baltimore. The creative development division is located in Massachusetts and California. Overall, the company has 416 employees located in the three major divisions. The Manufacturing Division has 158 employees, the Creative Development Division has 123 employees, and the Transportation, Service, and Maintenance Division has 135 employees (Fischer, 2013). Additionally, 71 employees are working at the Kansas City headquarters.

The key values of the company are cost reduction, innovation, and quality enhancement. Each division exemplifies one of these values. The Creative Development Division will exemplify innovation, Manufacturing Division exemplifies quality enhancement, and Transportation, Service, and Maintenance exemplify cost reduction.

Viewpoints Presented

The first viewpoint presented is for the company to pay the penalty of $2,000 (minus 30) and let employees’ source for their own insurance through state exchanges. The second viewpoint is that the company offers healthcare insurance but has a two-tiered program where certain employees pay a bit more due to their destructive lifestyles. The company focuses on cost-cutting, and it makes sense for the company to have its first option as the one that will reduce its overall expenditure. Paying the penalty is cheaper than having to source and pay for the healthcare insurance of all its employees. Understanding the significant values of the company will assist us in knowing why it finds this option as most favorable. The focus is on ensuring the company does follow the healthcare act as stipulated and allows employees to source for their insurance. In the end, the company will have managed to reduce its current insurance bill, which is around $10,000 per employee. Considering the option of saving $8,000 per employee, the company would come out in a favorable position since it would have saved its operating costs.

The disadvantage of following this option is that the company will likely lose some of its best talents. As the Creative Development Division heads have indicated, it is hard for them to compete with the Silicon Valley companies, which offer numerous benefits to their employees. The company will find itself unable to keep up with the technology it is trying to train its students. Cost-cutting will result in employees leaving the company, and getting new hires would be difficult since the benefits offered by Midwest Education would not be competitive or match what is offered by others (Hofmeister et al., 2017).

The second viewpoint of sourcing and offering employees healthcare insurance but with some restrictions mandates that the company creates a program where smokers and obese employees have to pay more. The strategy is to discourage those employees from smoking and encourage them to begin leading healthier lifestyles. Encouraging employees to lead healthier lifestyles will boost the company since there will be less sick off days taken by employees, which means productivity will always be high. Under the same viewpoint, the company could opt to have its in-house insurance program, where it would even hire nurse counselors to educate employees on wellness and assist employees in leading healthier lives. The advantage of this is that the company would have healthier employees who are more productive. Another advantage is that the company will retain its current talent and attract new talent, making it competitive in the job market.

The disadvantage of this strategy is that the company will not manage to reduce its costs.

Expected Outcome If the Company Gives Employee Healthcare Insurance

With this option being selected, the company will increase the morale of its employees, and it can attract other talented employees. When a company has motivated employees, the results are seen in the output produced by the employees. Production of the company will increase, which will also increase the bottom line of the company. The costs for training new employees due to the exit of current employees can be redirected for other purposes since there will be a reduction in employee turnover.

The viewpoint had the option of demanding employees who smoke and are obese to pay more in the healthcare insurance kitty. Overall, this strategy will lead to smoking in the office reducing. When employees are charged more for smoking, the chances of them quitting smoking increase. Obese employees will work hard to reduce their weight and reduce their consumption of unhealthy foods. With healthier employees, the company will have productive employees across the three divisions (Riyanto et al., 2017). The company’s healthcare costs will reduce since few employees have to visit a healthcare facility for treatment.

The company’s brand will be more robust, and the company can continue being the quality leader (Fischer, 2013). Quality is measured not only on the products and services offered but also on how a company treats and handles its human resources. Treating employees properly sends a message to consumers that the company cares, which will result in consumers purchasing products of the company. There is no way a company can mistreat its employees and still expect to remain a market leader (Ristic et al., 2017). The headache of sourcing for healthcare insurance is removed from the employees’ hands, and they have more time to focus on their work. Helping employees to continue being better at what they do should be the main focus of the division heads.

While costs should be analyzed before making the final decision, there are ways the company can manage to keep its healthcare insurance costs low and still offer coverage to all its employees.

Resolving The Viewpoint Differences

To better resolve the differences between the two viewpoints, the division heads should analyze each viewpoint from their division’s perspective. The analysis should incorporate the costings for each in terms of payments for insurance and costs of losing or hiring new employees. Each division can create a pros and cons table for each viewpoint and then make its presentations. The analysis will be geared towards uncovering the benefits of each viewpoint from a division perspective. Division heads understand their divisions better, and they can determine how each viewpoint would impact the division. Giving them the chance to analyze each viewpoint allows them to uncover things or issues they could not have predicted or seen had they not performed the analysis. Even the Creative Development Division could discover their proposed viewpoint might be unfavorable for the division over time and make them change their viewpoint.