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Healthcare for Micro-businesses!

Vote for Claudia for the Small Business Influencer Award – and vote everyday! She’s in the top 10. Let’s keep her there!

  • California Healthcare Exchange: SHOP
  • Understanding Healthcare Webinar
  • The Goodies – This week’s highlight includes free tuition for Economic Development 201-Business Credit Analysis for staff from non-profit 501c(3) organizations, courtesy of Citi. The training is September 9-13, 2013 in Orange County. Learn more and register.

California Healthcare Exchange: SHOP

Six carriers – Blue Shield of California, Chinese Community Health Plan, Health Net, Kaiser Permanente, Sharp Health Plan and Western Health Advantage – will offer insurance to small businesses as a part of of California’s health insurance marketplace, Covered California. From our friends at Small Business Majority:

California’s health insurance exchange – a cornerstone of the law for small employers -will be a one-stop shop where our entrepreneurs can find the right health insurance policy for their needs and budget. It will allow small businesses to pool their buying power to help drive down coverage costs. Small employers that do offer coverage will also be eligible for a tax credit of up to 50 percent of their premiums through Covered California. Additionally, a critical provision for small businesses in 2014 known as employee choice will also be included, which allows small business workers to choose from a number of plans from different insurance carriers, while the employer pays just one bill.

The enrollment period for SHOP begins October 1, 2013. Health coverage starts January 1, 2014.

Understanding Healthcare Webinar

To help get you prepared, CAMEO is hosting a webinar for you to learn how about the new SHOP exchange so you can tell your clients. We’ve invited Rhea Aguinaldo from Small Business Majority to present on the new healthcare options for California. (We’re thrilled that Rhea is still involved in the CAMEO network!) Join us on Wednesday, August 21, 2013 at 11:00am PT.

This webinar will focus on what the new healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act, means for small businesses. It will focus on both federal and state provisions to help local small business owners understand how the law will affect them. Learn more and register for What Healthcare Reform Means for Your California Small Business.

Anyone who talks to clients should be ‘fluent’ in healthcare and should attend this webinar. Your clients need to know this important information about their healthcare options.

The Goodies

New opportunities for trainings, conference information, funding, scholarships, and other information that have crossed our desks since the last Must Know: I have posted a running tab of current Goodies on the CAMEO website that lists items that were in past emails. Check it out to make sure you’re not missing anything, like grants whose deadlines are still alive!

Member Kudos: The North Coast SBDC‘s Liz Ennis and Sandy Neal have been recognized by the Northern California SBDC Regional Network for their outstanding performance in 2012. Ennis, a North Coast SBDC Business Advisor with a specialty in accounting systems, was awarded the 2012 Excellence in Economic Impact award. Neal, a Business Advisor helping those businesses in the Humboldt County area, was awarded the North Coast SBDC Team Contributor award.

Member Kudos: The Center for International Trade Development (CITD) initiative was presented with the Presidential “E” Award at the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office Board of Governors meeting on July 8th in Sacramento, California. Congratulations to CITD Director, Victor Castillo!

For Your Clients: Intuit is giving one lucky small business the opportunity of a lifetime: an ad in the Superbowl on 2/2/14. They are taking business stories now until the end of September. Learn more on Small Business, Big Game.

Free Guide: BALLE posted the Guide to Going Local. It’s full of ideas and advice on how to strengthen the local economy in your town: through buying local, highlighting new entrepreneurs, instilling local pride, investing locally, and more.

Healthcare Info: The Small Business Administration and Small Business Majority are launching the Affordable Care Act 101 weekly webinar series. Small business owners can learn the basics of the Affordable Care Act and what it means for their company and employees, including insurance reforms, the small business health care tax credit, the new health insurance marketplaces, and employer shared responsibility provisions. Each week, SBA representatives will walk through the key pieces of the law so that small business owners can understand the facts and make the best, informed decisions they can about providing health insurance for their employees. The Affordable Care Act 101 will take place every Thursday from now (next ones are August 1, 8) through the opening of the marketplaces in October. Go to their website to register for The Affordable Care Act 101.

For Your Clients: On Wednesday, August 14, 2013 Whole Foods Market will be hosting its second Local Vendor Summit at the Fort Mason Conference Center in San Francisco from 8:00am- 5:00pm.

Free Webinar: Increasing demands to meet the needs of underserved local communities, CDFIs are re-assessing of how they build their pipelines and produce results. More and more CDFIs are finding it necessary to build a mission-driven sales culture. Register for this webinar on a mission-driven sales culture for CDFI’s, hosted by Friedman Associates on August 22, 2013 at 11:00 am PDT // 2:00 pm EDT.

Free Training: As part of Citi’s commitment to building the capacity of partner organizations serving our local communities, it’s supporting a series of community economic development trainings focused on economic and community development finance conducted by the National Development Council (NDC). Through a contribution from the Citi Foundation, the cost of the tuition for Economic Development 201 – Business Credit Analysis will be provided at no cost to staff from non-profit 501c(3) organizations, including CDCs and CDFIs. The training is September 9 – 13, 2013 in Orange County. Learn more and register.