Attorney Geoffrey Lindley Warns of Challenges to Businesses in Complying with the Affordable Care Act

April 15th, 2013  

At Memphis Daily News Forum Attorney Geoffrey Lindley Warns of

Challenges to Businesses in Complying with the Affordable Care Act

Memphis (April 4, 2013) – The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will create challenges for businesses seeking to comply with the Act’s provisions that become effective on January 1, 2014, according to Geoffrey Lindley, an attorney with Rainey, Kizer, Reviere & Bell PLC (Rainey Kizer).  Lindley’s remarks came during his participation in a panel discussion as part of a Health Care Reform seminar sponsored by the Memphis Daily News.

Lindley explained that the ACA, sometimes referred to as “ObamaCare,” will require all businesses with 50 or more fulltime employees to provide their employees with affordable health insurance coverage or pay a per-employee penalty.  “One difficulty comes in determining who is or isn’t a fulltime employee,” Lindley said, holding up more than 140 pages of the regulations proposed to answer that question.  “These are the just proposed regulations,” he added.  “We are still waiting for the final version.”

Lindley said that if employers determine they are covered by the requirement, they will have to decide if they will provide coverage or risk paying the penalty.  As an example he cited a client company with operations in multiple states, with some locations providing healthcare and others not.  “They will have to make a decision on whether or not to provide coverage to all fulltime employees,” he said.

With the ACA regulations still evolving, it is important for businesses to work closely with their attorneys and benefits consultants in the run-up to 2014, he noted.

At Rainey Kizer, Lindley’s practice areas include employment law litigation (representing employers only), municipal law and government tort liability, civil rights litigation, and workers’ compensation.  He also has experience representing police departments and municipalities in 42 U.S.C. § 1983 litigation.  Lindley is a graduate of the University of Tennessee School of Law, where he was associate editor of Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law.

Susan Cooper, SVP and Chief Integration Officer at The MED was the seminar’s keynote presenter.  Lindley was joined for the panel discussion by officials of Baptist Memorial Health Care, DHG Healthcare, and Group Benefits LLC.

About Rainey Kizer

 Rainey, Kizer, Reviere & Bell, PLC is AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell and was named a Go-To Firm® by Fortune 500 general counsels.  The full-service law firm with offices in Jackson and Memphis represents local, state, and national clients before state and federal courts and regulatory agencies throughout the Mid-South.  For more information visit www.raineykizer.com.

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