Nightbird Books | Fayetteville, Arkansas

For Bookstore Owner, Offering Quality Coverage is Key to Attracting Quality Employees

Lisa Sharp
Nightbird Books
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Founded: 2006
Employees: 2 full-time, 3 part-time
Health Coverage: Purchased with state subsidy

After 5 years in business, Nightbird Books owner Lisa Sharp was finally able to get her hands on health insurance for her employees. Yet Lisa knows the plan she offers, which is the only one she can afford right now, is far from comprehensive and hopes to one day be able to offer something better.

Lisa opened Fayetteville’s Nightbird Books in April 2006. She says it’s been easier to find quality full-time employees since fall 2010 when she started offering coverage. She purchases insurance with a state subsidy, but Lisa looks forward to the Affordable Care Act’s 2014 health insurance exchanges, which will help her attract prospective employees by allowing her to offer better coverage at an affordable price.

Since Lisa has offered health insurance, “it’s been easier to hire people.”

A few years ago, Lisa saw premium rates for her husband’s small architectural firm quadruple in just a decade. The Sharp’s family plan, purchased through Robert’s small group plan, had risen to a whopping $1,200 per month. Her husband had to cancel the group coverage altogether, leaving his employees and his family without health insurance. For her family and her own business, Lisa decided to look into a state subsidy.

With the new subsidy, Lisa purchases insurance for herself, her husband, and one of her two full-time employees for $25 a month per person. But qualifying for the subsidy was complicated, and rules about income levels can render prospective employees ineligible for the coverage, potentially deterring them from taking a job. Also, the coverage is less than comprehensive. The plan pays for limited hospital visits each year and 2 prescriptions per month. While she’s glad she can extend coverage to her employees, the insurance she provides is a far cry from what she wishes she could offer.

“It’s better than nothing,” but “this insurance isn’t amazing by any means.”

While one of her adult children is insured through a job and another is covered by a bare bones college plan, Lisa, her husband and her employees are under a limited group plan. For these reasons, Lisa looks forward to 2014’s health insurance exchanges—online marketplaces where she can pool with other small business owners to purchase health insurance at an affordable cost. Ideally she “could find something better and split the cost” with all her employees, including her 3 part-time workers. With exchanges in place, that means an alternative to plans where participants have to hold their breath to get through the year with limited doctor’s visits, and relief from plans where a healthy family shells out more than a grand every month for coverage. The exchanges will ensure that for small business owners like Lisa, ‘something better’ means something comprehensive and something affordable.

Fortunately for Lisa, the exchanges aren’t the only provision of the ACA that will make insurance more affordable. Lisa is eligible for the Affordable Care Act’s small business tax credit, available since the 2010 tax year. Given Lisa’s number of employees and their average annual wages, she qualifies for the maximum tax credit, or 35% of her healthcare premium costs this year. In 2014 with exchanges in place, the maximum will rise to 50%. With the saved money Lisa says she’ll “pay a bill, I’m sure.” If in 2014 that bill happens to be for health insurance, it won’t cost Lisa an arm and a leg.