It is no secret that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) requires many employers to provide health insurance coverage to full-time employees, or pay a tax penalty. Employers subject to “Play or Pay” let out a collective sigh of relief when the final regulations, issued in February 2014, provided some additional transition relief in […]
On March 5, 2014, after several days of speculation, the Obama Administration announced a two year extension of a policy designed to allow individuals and small employers to extend plans slated to be canceled due to noncompliance with certain Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) requirements. A one year reprieve for canceled plans was […]
Last week, the IRS and Treasury published the final regulations on the employer shared responsibility provision, also known as the employer mandate or Play or Pay, of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Since publication, Katharine Marshall and I have spent a significant amount of time combing through the regulations to understand what has […]
After more than a year of anticipation, on Monday, February 10, 2014, the US Treasury Department issued final regulations and announced yet another delay of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s Employer Shared Responsibility provision, which requires employers with more than 50 employees to offer health insurance coverage to full-time workers or pay a […]
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has very quietly published a Notice of Coverage Options with an updated expiration date on its website. The new copy of the notice contains an expiration date of January 31, 2017, but it does not appear that the DOL has changed the substance of the notice. All employers subject to […]
The IRS and Treasury have published a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Notice of Hearing providing additional clarifications on the Individual Mandate and Minimum Essential Coverage requirements under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). This NPRM provides a number of clarifications and limited exemptions from the individual mandate in 2014 for individuals enrolled […]
UPDATE: Due to high website traffic that triggered the www.healthcare.gov queuing system, the Administration has decided to extend the enrollment deadline for Marketplace coverage to be effective to midnight on December 24, 2013. Individuals who enroll in coverage by midnight tomorrow will have coverage effective January 1, 2014. For more information on this extension, see […]
At 3:30pm on November 13, 2013, the Department of Health and Human Services announced highly anticipated enrollment data for individuals who have selected health insurance plans through the state or federal health insurance Exchanges. It is no secret that the launch of www.healthcare.gov and the opening of the federal health insurance Exchanges did not go […]
This Halloween, the IRS and Department of the Treasury (Agencies) have made the healthcare flexible spending arrangement “use it or lose it” rule a bit less scary after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s $2,500 cap on FSA contributions was implemented this year. The Agencies have modified the “use it or lose it” rule […]
An article from the Kaiser Family Foundation highlights an unintended consequence of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s (PPACA) evolution after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the summer of 2012 – a “coverage gap” for low income adults who are not eligible for Medicaid, but who do not make enough money to qualify […]
