Employment Law This Week®: DOJ’s New Stance on Title VII, ACA Contraception Mandate, SCOTUS Hears Class-Action Waiver Arguments, RI’s Paid Sick Leave Policy
CBO estimates 27 million would lose coverage under partial ACA repeal in the first year after elimination of Marketplace subsidies and Medicaid expansion; a federal judge orders delay in submission of North Carolina’s...more
Timely Topics - The final rule implementing Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) on May...more
This past May, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a final rule implementing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin,...more
Ways & Means Leadership Changes – Health Policy Implications Looming: As Congress pushes forward with a two-year budget deal, and new Speaker Paul Ryan begins his tenure as the top Republican in the House of...more
Hobby Lobby took on the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that it must provide female employees certain contraceptives on religious grounds and won. March for Life, a pro-life organization, is trying to reach the same result but...more
The Massachusetts Marketplace takes steps to ease consumer confusion by reducing choice among QHPs; North Carolina appears poised to pass Medicaid reform legislation; and bipartisan support is gaining for defining businesses...more
Respondeat superior (literally, "let the master answer" in Latin) is a doctrine that applies when an employer or principal has the ability and authority to direct and control the pertinent acts of the employee. Put otherwise,...more
The U.S. Departments of Treasury, Labor (DOL) and Health and Human Services (HHS) have issued interim final regulations and Frequently Asked Questions and Answers on the cost-free coverage of preventive services under the...more
In quick succession, governors in Alaska and Utah announce Medicaid expansions this week; Iowa is transitioning its expansion away from the Marketplace to Medicaid managed care, for now; and, HHS extends its exception to...more
One year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. et al, that for-profit closely held corporations must be permitted to opt out of the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate on...more
In This Issue: - Recent Mandatory APMs Signal Evolution in Delivery Reform Efforts - Implementation of the Affordable Care Act - Federal Regulatory Initiatives - Congressional Initiatives - Upcoming...more
The Departments of Labor (DOL), Health and Human Services (HHS), and Treasury (collectively, the Departments) issued guidance in the form of FAQs on the ACA’s preventive services mandate. The ACA requires non-grandfathered...more
Religious institutions commonly make payments to or receive payments directly or indirectly from governmental agencies for services rendered; e.g., day cares that benefit from public scholarships, hospitals that participate...more
Suzanne Weakley, editor-in-chief of the CEB Business Law Practitioner, recently called my attention to this letter from six professors at U.C. Berkeley (Robert P. Bartlett III, Richard Buxbaum, Stavros Gadinis, Justin...more
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a challenge to regulations mandating that employers provide contraceptive coverage for their employees. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., the Court found the regulations promulgated by the...more
As summer rolls to a close, the agencies continue to make announcements and roll out additional regulations. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) introduced the new CEO of Healthcare.gov, awarded grants to 147...more
The Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) requires that non-grandfathered health plans make preventive care and screenings available to their members at no cost (i.e. no deductibles, coinsurance, or co-payments). The Department of...more
The United States Supreme Court granted Wheaton College, a religious non-profit college in Illinois, an injunction permitting the college to opt into the ACA contraception mandate’s accommodation scheme available to certain...more
In This Issue: - Administration Releases Updated Contraception Coverage Rules - Federal Regulatory Initiatives - Other Congressional and State Initiatives - Other Health Care News - Upcoming...more
How can the controversial decision in the Hobby Lobby contraception coverage case impact employers? The U.S. Supreme Court in June decided the controversial case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. The court ruled...more
Two federal appeals courts issued contradictory rulings on the validity of subsidies for the purchase of health insurance under the federal marketplace established pursuant to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). On July 22, a...more
In This Issue: - First Guidance following Hobby Lobby released - Implementation of the Affordable Care Act - Other Federal Regulatory Initiatives - Other Congressional and State Initiatives ...more
On June 30, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that closely held, for-profit corporations may claim a religious exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) mandate of providing certain types of...more
Survey of ACA Navigators Finds 10.6 Million People Sought Enrollment Help — In a survey released this week, the Kaiser Family Foundation (“Kaiser”) estimates that approximately 10.6 million people received assistance...more
The United Statutes Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision holds that for-profit closely held corporations can object, on the basis of sincerely held religious beliefs, to the contraception mandate imposed by the Patient...more