Jennifer Kraft, Ronald Kramer and Kristin McGurn Quoted in Hotel News Now
“Hotels and Health Care: Just the Facts”

Jennifer Kraft, Ronald Kramer and Kristin McGurn were quoted in the May 20, 2010 Hotel News Now article, “Hotels and Health Care: Just the Facts.” The article discussed how the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 recently passed into law yet few people within the hotel industry have grasped what it means for them.

According to the article, the American Hotel & Lodging Association and Seyfarth Shaw hosted a webinar, “Healthcare Reform and Lodging: What Now?” to clarify the new law and provide guidance to lodging employers. Jennifer noted, “The general premise is to have an individual mandate. Everyone is required to have health insurance coverage. The idea is you have more people in the pool including healthy people who may not have a lot of expenses, and that’s going to lower the cost of health care for everyone.” The article explained that along with the individual mandate for health insurance, there is also an employer mandate that requires employers to provide affordable coverage or pay a penalty.

Ron commented that the hotel industry has some unique workforce characteristics that make the healthcare reform law of particular interest. He further commented that the abundance of part-time workers, seasonal workers and independent contractors, to name a few, will have a dramatic impact on how the hotel owners and managers accommodate the law's many provisions.

The article further noted that independent contractors may or may not count toward that 50 full-time equivalent threshold. Kristen pointed out, “Even before reform, we knew there were task forces around the country being set up to identify employers who misclassified true full-time employees as independent contractors. We know now that there’s legislation proposed that would increase record keeping and education and penalties relating to independent contractor misclassification."