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Member, Beacon International Group, Ltd.
SAN FRANCISCO—Employers with workers in San Francisco will have to pay more next year to comply with the city's controversial health care spending law.
Beginning on Jan. 1, 2011, employers with 100 or more employees in San Francisco will be required to spend $2.06 per hour per covered employee on health care, up from $1.96 in 2009. Employers with between 20 and 99 employees will have to spend at least $1.37 per hour, up from $1.31, city officials announced Thursday. Employers with fewer than 20 employees are exempt from the requirement.
The spending requirement can be satisfied in various ways, including payment of employees' health insurance premiums and contributions to health savings accounts, and health reimbursement arrangements.
The spending requirement applies to employees working at least eight hours per week.
The 2006 law so far has withstood attempts to have it overturned. In 2008, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled, in a challenge by a San Francisco area restaurant trade group, that the ordinance was not pre-empted by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act. In 2009, the full appeals court declined to review the panel's decision.
The Golden Gate Restaurant Assn. has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the appeal panel's ruling.