Under the Massachusetts Health Care Reform Act (the "Act"), the Division of Health Care Finance and Policy (DHCFP) of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services was given, among other tasks, the job of determining which employers were "non-contributing" employers-i.e., those employers who must pay an annual, per-employee fee because they fail to offer some minimum prescribed level of employer-subsidized health insurance coverage for their full-time employees. (This requirement is generically referred to as the Fair Share Contribution or FSC requirement.)

On October 1, 2006, the DHCFP issued final regulations implementing the fair share premium requirement. On September 14, 2007, DHCFP issued an administrative bulletin further clarifying, among other things, the application of the "primary" test as applied to multiemployer (i.e., union-sponsored) health plans. In a recent administrative bulletin, the DHCFP addressed the treatment of multiemployer plans under the FSC "secondary" test.

For more information, please see this Mitnz Levin Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Alert.