ICHRA for manufacturers · Upstate South Carolina
Control health benefit costs on the plant floor and in the front office. With a CHOICE Arrangement (formerly called an ICHRA), you set tax-free monthly allowances for hourly and salaried employees, and each worker picks an individual plan that works where they live. Poston Health sets it up and helps every employee enroll, from our Greenville office.
Your cost is the allowance you set by class, not a renewal rate you find out about in the fall.
Give each class its own allowance. Everyone in a class gets the same terms.
Offer the ICHRA to new hires only and let current employees keep the group plan.
Employees commute from all over the Upstate. Each one picks a plan and network where they live.
Use a waiting period for new hires, within the 90-day limit, and stop the allowance when someone leaves.
Workers on Medicare can often use the allowance toward Medicare premiums, with help from our Medicare team.
A sample of six employees at an Upstate plant. Hourly employees get age-based allowances of $400 under 30, $450 in the 30s, $600 in the 40s and $850 at 50 and over. Salaried employees are a separate class with $650 in the 40s and $1,000 at 50 and over. Premiums are actual 2026 prices for Greenville County.
| Employee | Age | Lowest-cost Bronze | Lowest-cost Silver | Monthly allowance | Employee pays for Bronze | Employee pays for Silver |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly, line | 22 | $312 | $462 | $400 | $0 | $62 |
| Hourly, line | 34 | $379 | $561 | $450 | $0 | $111 |
| Hourly, maintenance | 48 | $510 | $755 | $600 | $0 | $155 |
| Hourly, lead | 59 | $812 | $1,202 | $850 | $0 | $352 |
| Salaried, supervisor | 41 | $406 | $601 | $650 | $0 | $0 |
| Salaried, plant manager | 55 | $696 | $1,030 | $1,000 | $0 | $30 |
| Total | $3,950/mo |
The result: every employee in this sample can get a Bronze plan for $0, and the company’s cost for these six is a fixed $3,950 a month. Allowances can be set lower or higher for each class. Try your own numbers in the ICHRA estimator.
Premiums: lowest-cost Bronze and Silver plans, self-only, non-tobacco, Greenville County (Rating Area 23), from the CMS 2026 Rate Public Use File. 2027 prices are released November 1. Illustration only, not a quote.
Each employee buys a plan in their own county, so the same allowance goes further in some places than others. Here’s the lowest-cost Silver plan for a 40-year-old in each Upstate county in 2026:
| Where the employee lives | Lowest-cost Silver, age 40 | Carriers |
|---|---|---|
| Greenville County | $590 | Ambetter, BlueCross SC, First Choice Next |
| Spartanburg County | $641 | Ambetter, BlueCross SC, First Choice Next, InStil |
| Anderson County | $662 | Ambetter, BlueCross SC, First Choice Next |
| Pickens County | $584 | Ambetter, BlueCross SC, First Choice Next |
| Oconee County | $550 | Ambetter, BlueCross SC |
| Laurens County | $582 | Ambetter, BlueCross SC, First Choice Next, UnitedHealthcare |
| Cherokee County | $641 | Ambetter, BlueCross SC, First Choice Next, Molina, UnitedHealthcare |
We plan allowances around where your people actually live and check each employee’s doctors and hospital, such as Prisma Health, Bon Secours St. Francis, Spartanburg Regional or AnMed, before they enroll.
Source: CMS 2026 Rate, Plan Attributes and Service Area Public Use Files (self-only, non-tobacco). Illustration only, not a quote.
Sources: 26 CFR 54.9802-4; IRS Rev. Proc. 2026-26; CMS CHOICE Arrangements. Updated October 2026. General information, not tax or legal advice.
One contact, start to finish. Your HR team works with Dave from the first quote through every renewal. No call center and no handoffs.
OWNER | GROUP BENEFITS SPECIALIST
Dave has worked in group benefits since 2011. He helps Greenville-area employers design benefits packages, run open enrollment and keep renewals under control, and he stays your direct point of contact from the first quote through every renewal.
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Yes. Hourly and salaried employees can be separate classes with different allowances. Everyone in the same class gets the same terms, and amounts can rise with age (up to 3 times for the oldest) and family size.
Yes, by class. For example, salaried staff could keep the group plan while hourly staff move to an ICHRA. When you mix the two, each class must meet a minimum size: 10 employees if you have fewer than 100, 10% of employees if you have 100 to 200, and 20 if you have more.
Yes. The rules allow a new-hire subclass: employees hired after a date you choose get the ICHRA, while current employees keep the group plan. It’s a common way to transition gradually.
Yes. You can use a waiting period before new hires become eligible, within the federal 90-day limit.
Yes. Each employee buys a plan where they live, so prices and plan choices vary by county. We plan allowances around where your team actually lives and check each employee’s doctors and hospital before they enroll.
You must offer coverage that’s affordable. For 2027, an ICHRA counts as affordable if the employee’s cost for the lowest-cost Silver plan, after the allowance, is no more than 10.22% of household income. IRS safe harbors, including the rate-of-pay safe harbor for hourly employees, let you use wages instead. We run this test for you.
Employees enrolled in Medicare can often use the allowance toward Medicare premiums, and our Medicare team helps them choose coverage. Extra rules apply to Medicare-eligible employees at companies with 20 or more employees.
Send us your staff’s ages and home ZIP codes (no names or health information). Dave will put an ICHRA and a traditional group plan side by side with real prices and walk you through it, by phone, online or at our Greenville office.
