Most of the discussion swirling around the mandate provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act refers to the individual component. Brokers and employees seem to get all the press.

What gets less coverage, and could have a much broader impact, is the employer mandate. That part of the law, in short, forces any employer with more than 50 full-time employees to offer health care coverage. (Employees, though, are allowed to decline said coverage, but that's another story.)

The conventional wisdom, of course, is that we'll see a widening of the divided between small and larger employers. Much like the middle class as a whole, we could see the slow extinction of what we see as mid-sized companies—those employing around 50 to 100 workers. The logic is that those close to that 50-employee threshold will do just enough to squeak under it, while only those companies employing more than 100 or so would even be able to afford to offer the coverage. The next few months should clear this up as the Jan. 1 deadline approaches.