Effective on January 1st, 2015, ALL employers with 50 or more full time equivalent (FTE) employees are required to provide health insurance coverage to full-time employees.
Should an employer CHOOSE not to provide the mandated coverage, a tax penalty must be paid by the employer to our overlords. That's just another crooked stake in an otherwise discombobulated law.
This is known as the employer mandate.
Employers with fewer than 50 FTEs are NOT subject to tax penalties for choosing not to offer health insurance coverage.
There is great confusion about the ACA.
In summation, an employer is mandated to provide health insurance.
Yet, the employer can make a choice.
Some employers comply, providing a health plan.
Other employers weight the costs of providing a health insurance plan against the purported tax penalty.
Whether any employer pays a tax penalty and refuses to offer health insurance benefits, as mandated, hinges upon a cost-benefits analysis.
In the mindset of some employers, paying the penalty might be cheaper than providing the health plan. Other employers might see it as a choice and a chance to poke our overlords in their eyes.
Sorry, mate, your employer apparently has decided to pay the penalty and do some poking.