Employers would simply provide Health Insurance or contribute to the city option, those would be the two principle methods of complying with our local spending requirement. I see. So, talking about the 53 of employers who place restrictions on these accounts, then were talking abthese folks now going the route of insurance or healthy San Francisco . Yes, going the Health Insurance or contributing to the city option, the contribution tos the city option as has been indicated previously, the pool and the size of the healthy San Francisco problem, excuse me, the healthy San Francisco program is likely to be reduced and consequently, the contributions that employers make to the city option will be routed to medical reimbursement accounts that are administered by the city for individual employees, these are similar to frankly the Health Reimbursement accounts that are used widely today and administered privately, there are some difference, one of those which i think youre getting to is that
Business community, i know the Golden Gate Restaurants Association did a lot of work to make sure that those numbers were lowered and i know that a lot of information to its members, but it hasnt i would be remiss if i didnt also mention while the rates of restrictions have stayed consist tents, we have seen an up tick on the utilization of these utilization accounts, people have been reimbursed in a higher pe sen taj due to a lot of outreach from both the business community, other members in the community. So, now that hras are not allowed under the aca, then what happens in terms of, you know, compliance with the health and security ordinance, what ways do employers have . Yeah, i certainly expect and theres all indications that theres a lot of robust policy discussions about this and any potential changes but for the time being, or pending any changes, i think our expectation or our understanding is commencing in 2014, again, no with standing the possibility of changes at the federa
Okay, thanks. And unless there is anyone from the city administrators office, why dont we now go to Public Comment. I have a couple of Public Comment cards. I want to first acknowledge eli [speaker not understood] from spur. [speaker not understood] from the San Francisco urban agriculture alliance. And then andrea i think its jag win from the white Spring Community garden. And anyone else who would like to speak in Public Comment, if you can please line up on the righthand side of this room. Eli. Thank you, supervisors. My name is eli zegas, im the [speaker not understood] program man erupt at spur. And im here in support of the resolution. As the recreation and Parks Department pointed out in their presentation, we feel that the department has a number of strengths that makes sense for the program to be housed there and were also encouraged by what youve heard, that the department sees the program as supplementing and coordinating among agencies and also serving all types of urban ag
Questions about the employer spending requirement, from the per specie of the department of Public Health, how could the employer spending requirement benefit employees that may fall within the 35 thousand, 15 thousand, you know, 19 thousand . So, certainly the employer spending requirement does many thing, it allows for people to get Health Insurance which is primarily how its used. Most of the employer spending requirement is spent to purchase Health Insurance for employees, it can also be used as you know for the city option which can support their enrollment in healthy San Francisco which doesnt mean the individual mandate, but the mra aoption under the city option can be used to purchase Health Insurance premiums for individuals. I see, and one of the things that i remember and i wasnt on the board when this happened, do you remember reading about dr. Cats that served as the director of Public Health at the time and i remember him explaining how the employer spending requirement w
Law that occupies the entire field of an area and when the federal government adopts the law that occupies an entire field, congress may say local jurisdiction, you cant meddle with this subject, in this case, the Affordable Care act allows local jurisdictions like San Francisco to adopt ordinances like the health care ordinance. Thank you for that clarification. Thank you very much, why dont we go on to Public Comment and we have a large number of people here, so normally i give each speaker which is the maximum which is 3 minutes, but i dont want to lose our quorum, so we will limit to 2 minutes, so why dont i read off a few names. calling speaker names . Good afternoon. Im ken jacobs, im the chair of the uc berkeley labor and education and one of the coprinciple investigators for the simulation of market and is the primary model being used for projections in how Health Coverage will change in california as a result of the Affordable Care act and has been used by state, counties and