On January 24, 2013, the Department of Labor issued guidance delaying the deadline for employers to provide employees with notice of coverage options available through the health care exchanges. Learn more here. Continue reading

Beginning in 2014, large U.S. employers that do not offer a minimum level of affordable health coverage to their full-time employees may be required to pay an assessment of up to $3,000 per employee. For plan years beginning in 2015, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) is proposing to extend this... Continue reading

With the effective date for major changes in the private insurance market under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) less than a year away, a new Kaiser Family Foundation brief looks at three new proposed federal regulations that detail how the ACA’s rules will operate. Continue reading

Recently, the IRS released proposed regulations implementing the employer “play or pay” provisions in the Affordable Care Act. The rules are applicable to employers with 50 or more full-time equivalents and outline the requirements for employers to provide affordable, minimum value health insurance to full-time employees to avoid penalties. Much... Continue reading

On December 28, 2012, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued proposed regulations providing guidance on the employer shared responsibility provisions under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Additionally, a new set of questions and answers regarding the shared responsibility requirements has been posted on the IRS website. Read more here. Continue reading

Companies must decide before the start of 2014 what they’ll do to comply with the healthcare law. Right now, no one knows how much the insurance will cost, and owners aren’t sure if they’d be better off not buying it and paying a government a penalty of $2,000 per worker.... Continue reading

With healthcare reform unfolding and no end in sight to soaring medical costs, employers are playing a key role in transforming healthcare delivery. They are helping to rebuild the healthcare system with a do-it-yourself approach that takes picking the right tool. The new options include value-based design, workplace clinics and... Continue reading

The Supreme Court is set to release its ruling on the constitutionality of President Obama’s controversial health reform law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), as early as this week. In addition to the highly divisive individual insurance mandate, the ACA contains a variety of provisions designed to broaden access to... Continue reading

A decision to invalidate the entire health care law would have vastly different effects on employers, depending on their size. Learn more here. Continue reading

The Obama Administration is particularly proud of the small business friendly provisions in the Patient Care and Affordability Act. For example, there is a tax credit available for small employers that pay at least half their low-wage employees’ health insurance premiums (“low-wage” here means earning $11.50 an hour or less).... Continue reading

In a 2009 study by the White House, small businesses pay 18% more in premiums for health coverage than their big box competitors per employee. As a small business owner are you surprised by this statistic? Of course not. Continue reading

Millions of small businesses failed to claim tax credits they could have received under President Obama’s healthcare law, according to a new report from the advocacy group Families USA. Read more from The Hill's health care blog here. Continue reading

Nearly 50,000 people are enrolled in the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, according to a report released Feb. 23 by the Department of Health and Human Services. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act created the program as a bridge to 2014, when the ACA prohibits denying coverage to people with... Continue reading

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Feb. 17 issued answers to Frequently Asked Questions on the agency’s intended approach to defining “essential health benefits” for individual and small group health insurance plans under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In December, CMS issued a bulletin outlining proposed... Continue reading

President Obama's proposed budget would expand the health law's healthcare tax credits by about $14 billion over a decade, the administration highlighted Feb. 16. Under the law, companies with 25 or fewer workers that pay for at least half of employees' healthcare coverage can claim progressively higher tax credits (up... Continue reading

The Affordable Care Act’s state health insurance exchanges for small businesses present a host of opportunities for states now creating them, but they also present design and regulatory challenges that could make or break the success of the program, according to a cluster of articles in the February issue of... Continue reading

A new Kaiser Family Foundation fact sheet summarizes key provisions in the Affordable Care Act that may affect small businesses and their employees. The fact sheet explains the law’s small business tax credits and the Small Business Health Options Program exchanges to be established in each state by 2014, both... Continue reading

The U.S. House of Representatives on Dec. 20 voted 229-193 to reject consideration of bipartisan Senate amendments to the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act (H.R. 3630) and request a conference with the Senate on the legislation. In a statement, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the chamber would not negotiate until the House passes the compromise measure. Passed by the Senate on Dec. 18, the compromise bill would extend current Medicare physician payment rates for two months to prevent a 27.4% cut effective Jan. 1 without cutting hospital payments. It also includes several American Hospital Association-supported rural... Continue reading

The MHA Federalist blog will continue to track federal legislation of interest to our members, but the Health Reform Hub has moved to MHA Connect. The community setting allows members to share documents, post discussion items and read and share news and upcoming educational events. If you are an MHA member and need your username and password to log in, contact Diane Clift at (601) 368-3217 or dclift@mhanet.org. This same username and password will also work to register for meetings at www.mhanet.org and access members-only information on MHA's new smartphone app. Continue reading

Among the issues on which the United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear oral arguments in the Affordable Care Act cases is the question of whether its minimum Medicaid coverage requirements are constitutional. The states have based their appeal on a legal theory known as the “coercion doctrine.” Citing a long history of precedents, the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit dismissed their arguments. Now the United States Supreme Court will decide. Read more from the Health Affairs blog here. Continue reading

The week of December 5 was a particularly busy week in health care reform implementation. After a lull over the Thanksgiving holiday, new regulations, proposed regulations, guidance, and grant announcements have poured out of the agencies. This Health Affairs blog post briefly summarizes three of these issuances: the final rule on the Establishment of Consumer Operated and Oriented (CO-OP) program; the final rule on the Availability of Medicare Data for Performance Measurement to qualified entities; and a series of proposed rules and forms issued by the Department of Labor to implement new provisions of the ACA intended to address Multiple... Continue reading

The Department of Health and Human Services on Dec. 8 issued a final rule establishing the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan program. Created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the program will provide $3.8 billion in loans and grants to help organizations develop nonprofit health cooperatives, which will sell qualified health plans that promote care coordination to individuals and small businesses through state insurance exchanges. According to the rule, which details eligibility and other standards for the program, organizations sponsored by existing health insurance issuers and their holding companies and foundations are not eligible for the loans. The... Continue reading

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Dec. 5 issued a final rule for the release and use of Medicare claims data to qualified entities to measure the performance of Medicare providers under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Beginning in 2012, the ACA requires the Health and Human Services secretary to provide standardized extracts of Medicare Parts A, B and D claims data to qualified entities on request. Among other changes to the proposed rule, CMS estimates the average cost for a qualified entity for the first year of the program is $40,000, down from $200,000 in... Continue reading

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Dec. 2 issued a final rule implementing changes to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s medical loss ratio requirements for health insurers effective Jan. 1. According to CMS, the changes from the interim final rule largely address technical issues involved in the way insurers calculate and report their MLR and the mechanism for distributing rebates to enrollees in group health plans. For example, the rule requires insurers to provide notice of rebates to group policy holders and enrollees, and to provide the rebates through lower premiums or in other ways that... Continue reading

Just a little more than an hour after some House Democrats recently demanded an inquiry into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s ethics, Senate Republicans stepped up the pressure on Justice Elena Kagan to take herself out of the court’s decision on the health-care reform act. The process repeated itself a few days later. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) called for the release of more documents about Kagan’s role as President Obama’s solicitor general; the liberal group People for the American Way came out with another broadside against Thomas. Read the full story from Robert Barnes in the Washington... Continue reading