Final answer:
The requirement for employers to offer health insurance is known as the Employer Mandate, which is a component of the Affordable Care Act. It applies to employers with over 50 employees and is intended to broaden health coverage accessibility and minimize adverse selection by distributing costs.
Step-by-step explanation:
The legal requirement for employers to help pay for their employees' health insurance is known as the Employer Mandate, part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), often referred to as Obamacare. This mandate requires all employers with more than 50 employees to offer health insurance. The intent behind the employer mandate is to increase access to health coverage and spread the financial risk across a larger pool of insured individuals. Additionally, under the ACA, there were provisions for both individual and employer mandates aimed at reducing adverse selection and spreading the insurance costs more evenly among the healthy and the sick.
Funding for these provisions of the ACA includes various methods such as increasing the Medicare tax by 0.9%, adding a 3.8% tax on unearned income for high-income taxpayers, and imposing annual fees on health insurance providers, among others. The ACA has faced challenges and undergone changes over time, with some taxes being reduced or eliminated, and continuous political debate regarding its provisions