Alden Bianchi, Chair of the our Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Practice, will provide a weekly installment on the complex reporting obligations outlined by the Affordable Care Act for health insurance carriers and...more
7/20/2015
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Compliance ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Group Health Plans ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employer Mandates ,
Exceptions ,
Good Faith ,
Health Insurance ,
Individual Mandate ,
IRS ,
Minimum Essential Coverage ,
Penalties ,
Popular ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Self-Funded Health Plans
Employers and their HR departments are faced with a host of new issues and challenges. When you’re not navigating new state, federal, and local laws and making sure systems are in place to comply with them, you’re busy...more
With two seemingly simple and straightforward definitions in the final regulations implementing the Affordable Care Act’s pay-or-play rules—i.e., definitions of “employer” and “employee”— the Treasury Department and IRS have...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
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) ushered in broad national standards aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the U.S. health care system. Referred to generically as...more
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) generally prohibits discrimination in eligibility, benefits, or premiums based on a health factor, except in the case of certain wellness programs. Final...more
The IRS recently issued two Q&As on the subject of employer payment plans, the purpose of which was to again underscore that arrangements purporting to allow an employer to reimburse employees on a pre-tax basis for premiums...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
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
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
So where are they?
Final regulations implementing the Affordable Care Act’s rules governing shared responsibility of employers were widely expected to have “dropped” before the beginning, or perhaps during the first...more
(Note: This is the first installment of a series of entries that Alden will be posting each week for the next 51 weeks as he counts down to the January 1st, 2015 ACA pay-or-play deadline).
...more
The Obama administration's July 2013 announcement, delaying enforcement of the employer mandate under the Affordable Care Act by one year, has affected not only when employees must be offered health insurance coverage but...more
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the “Act”) amends the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) to require employers of all sizes to provide their employees a notice of the availability of coverage through public...more
8/21/2013
/ Affordable Care Act ,
COBRA ,
Compliance ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employer Mandates ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Health Insurance Exchanges ,
Healthcare ,
Marketplace Notice ,
Notice Requirements
The regulation of marriage was historically presumed to be the exclusive domain of the states. Since 1996, however, the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 (“DOMA”) changed this presumption in two important respects...more
7/5/2013
/ Civil Unions ,
COBRA ,
Compliance ,
DOMA ,
Domestic Partnership ,
Due Process ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employer Group Health Plans ,
Equal Protection ,
Health Insurance ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Same-Sex Marriage ,
SCOTUS ,
US v Windsor
Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the “Act”), the federal government, state governments, insurers, employers, and individuals all share responsibility to make affordable health insurance coverage widely...more