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Oklahoma’s Attorney General has revived his state’s challenge to the federal health reform law, this time targeting the law’s employer mandate. The state’s amended complaint at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma seeks to overturn an IRS regulation allowing some consumers to get federal subsidies to buy insurance on health insurance […]
In some years, Sept. 23 represents the Autumn Equinox, but in 2012 for health plan sponsors and administrators, it triggers the compliance date for a key disclosure requirement under health reform: the distribution of summaries of benefits and coverage, beginning with open enrollment periods and/or plan years that begin on or after Sept. 23. Here […]
Employers may use look-back periods of up to 12 months, rather than a shorter period as initially established — to average out how many hours an employee works per week, which is a necessity when calculating an employer’s obligation under reform’s play-or-pay provisions. IRS Notice 2012-58 may help some employers escape erroneous shared-responsibility payments under health […]
A Christian liberal arts college lost a bid to secure a court ruling that would both characterize the health reform’s contraceptive mandate as improper and enjoin the government from enforcing it. It’s one of 26 challenges to the mandate that health plans cover contraceptives without patient cost-sharing. On Aug. 24, the U.S. District Court for […]
Compliance with the contraceptive coverage mandate under health reform is stayed until Aug. 1, 2013 for employers that fit into a slightly expanded enforcement safe harbor described by the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) in an Aug. 15 memo. Reform’s preventive care mandate requires plans and insurers to cover a host of […]
In response to health reform, some employers may stop offering health coverage and opt instead to pay a fine, give workers a raise and send them to state-run health insurance exchanges. Compensating for that , the individual mandate may drive about 4 million workers into employer plans, according to research from various sources compiled by […]
Today was the final day for insurers to issue rebates for 2011 premiums (as required by health reform), so employers should know by now whether they got one. The next step employers face is passing the proper amount of the rebate on to employees. When rebates go to employers, the incentives favor applying the rebates to […]
A Colorado-based company that is not a religious organization got a temporary reprieve in complying with the Obama administration’s mandate that health plans cover contraceptives without patient cost sharing, under a new ruling from the U.S. District Court in Colorado. The reform requirement takes effect for non-grandfathered and non-religious employer health plans on Aug. 1. […]
How the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will identify benchmark plans that would set the standard for essential health benefits under health reform was described in a final rule issued July 23. This is important because policies sold on health insurance exchanges — for individuals and for small groups — must cover the […]
Employers and plan administrators have a new reporting requirement to fulfill now that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is confirmed to be the law of the land. The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in National Federation of Independent Business, et.al. v. Sebelius, No. 11-393 (June 28, 2012) eliminates any doubt regarding whether employers need to comply with […]