Applicable large employers faced with the prospect of complying with the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility rules must grapple with and understand what is means to make an offer of minimum essential coverage...more
Under the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility rules, applicable large employers (those with 50 or more full-time and full-time equivalent employees on business days during the preceding calendar year) incur...more
Under the Affordable Care Act’s rules governing employer shared responsibility—which are codified in Internal Revenue Code § 4980H—where an applicable large employer makes an offer of group health plan coverage that is both...more
Final regulations implementing the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility rules furnish employers with two alternative methods—the monthly measurement method and the look-back measurement method—for identifying...more
For purposes of complying with the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility rules (which are codified in Internal Revenue Code § 4980H), employers must identify their “full-time employees.” Final regulations...more
The Treasury Department and the IRS had a busy week issuing no less than five Affordable Care Act guidance items, consisting of...more
A recent Washington Post article (“Glitch in health care law allows employers to offer substandard insurance,” September 12, 2014) highlights an Affordable Care Act compliance strategy being marketed heavily (and adopted...more
Whether an employer makes the requisite offer of group health plan coverage is critical to the application of the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility rules as reflected in final implementing regulations...more
An earlier post explained the two principle methods—the “monthly measurement method” and the “look-back measurement method”—available to applicable large employers to identify full-time employees for purposes of determining...more
While employers sometimes view the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility (or “pay-or-play”) rules in isolation, they don’t operate that way. Instead, they exist side-by-side with other provisions of the Act. In...more
On July 22, 2014, two federal appellate courts issued conflicting decisions, within hours of each other, regarding the IRS final rule published on May 23, 2012 (the “IRS Rule”), intended to implement the exchange-related tax...more
7/28/2014
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Chevron Deference ,
Employer Mandates ,
Halbig v Burwell ,
Health Insurance ,
Health Insurance Exchanges ,
Healthcare Reform ,
IRS ,
King v Burwell ,
Subsidies ,
Tax Credits
For applicable large employers (i.e., employers who employed at least 50 full-time and full-time equivalent employees on business days during the preceding calendar year) endeavoring to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s...more
7/21/2014
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Employer Group Health Plans ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employer Mandates ,
Final Rules ,
Full-Time Employees ,
Health Insurance ,
Look-Back Measurement Period ,
Part-Time Employees ,
Seasonal Employment ,
Variable Hour Employees
The Employer Shared Responsibility provisions of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) generally require “applicable large employers” (i.e., employers who employed at least 50 full-time and full-time equivalent employees on...more
7/16/2014
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Contractors ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employer Contributions ,
Employer Group Health Plans ,
Employer Mandates ,
Federal Contractors ,
IRS ,
Service Contract Act ,
Subcontractors ,
U.S. Treasury ,
Wage and Hour
To call the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. much-anticipated or highly controversial is an understatement. And, to be clear, any time the Supreme Court weighs in on bed-rock...more
The Departments of the Treasury/IRS, Labor and Health and Human Services (the “Departments”) recently issued a final regulation under the 90-day waiting period limitation, which is included among the Affordable Care Act’s...more
6/30/2014
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Employer Mandates ,
Healthcare ,
Healthcare Reform ,
Internal Revenue Code (IRC) ,
IRS ,
PHSA ,
U.S. Treasury
It was just over a year ago that the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled, “Employers Eye Bare-Bones Health Plans Under New Law,” which highlighted a compliance strategy to minimize employer exposure for...more
In last week’s post, we examined the appropriateness of capping the annual hours of new “variable hour employees” as a way to limit exposure under the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility rules. (These rules...more
Whenever Congress draws a line in the sand—such as with exposure for assessable payments under the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibly rules—entities subject to regulation (here, applicable large employers) will...more
Commencing with plan and policy years beginning on or after January 1, 2014, the Affordable Care Act amends the Public Health Service Act (“PHS Act”) to make three important changes to the rules governing health insurance...more
Particularly with the issuance of final regulations under the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility rules, employers have been concerned—justifiably—with the pay-or-play penalties. ...more
In a rare display of bipartisanship, Congress voted to eliminate the Affordable Care Act’s separate cap on deductibles that applies to individual and small group insurance products. (These limits never applied to large...more
Distinguishing employees who are full-time from those who are not takes up a good deal of real estate in final regulations published in the Federal Register on February 12 implementing the Act’s employer shared responsibility...more
The last few weeks have produced a regulatory frenzy under various provisions of the Affordable Care Act affecting employers...more
On March 5th, 2014, the Treasury Department and the IRS issued two final reporting rules of critical importance to employers...more
So much attention has been paid to the issuance of the final employer shared responsibility regulations that some might have missed the news that final regulations were recently issued under another of the Affordable Care...more