Today the Department of Treasury announced a one year delay in the Affordable Care Act’s requirement for large employers to offer health insurance to eligible employees and for mandatory insurance reporting requirements. What exactly does this mean and how does this delay affect you and the Affordable Care Act in general?
Reported by Forbes.com 2 hours ago.
What Does The Delay In The Employer Mandate Mean For You And Obamacare?
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White House Violates Law with Obamacare Delay
Obama administration officials are illegally delaying enforcement of a central provision in the president’s namesake legislation in a desperate attempt to manipulate the 2014 midterm elections and swell the ranks of those who look to government for healthcare. The White House is beginning to sense that when Americans realize the price of “free” healthcare, they’re likely to take swift vengeance on those responsible.
Section 1513 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, better known as Obamacare) requires all large employers to provide health insurance for their employees. “Large employers” are those with at least 50 full-time employees, and “full-time” is defined as averaging 30 or more hours per week.
Section 1513’s “Employer Mandate” is one of five parts of the ACA that are absolutely essential for this government-run system to work, with the most well-known of those five being the infamous “Individual Mandate” upheld by the Supreme Court as a tax by a controversial 5-4 decision in 2012.
And the Employer Mandate is mandatory. The law Congress wrote explicitly commands that this provision takes effect in January 2014. The ACA does not permit the government to grant a reprieve or an extension.
Yet in a blatantly illegal move, the Obama administration is presuming to rewrite the ACA by choosing not to enforce provisions that are causing visible problems. The IRS—which is tasked with enforcing the Employer Mandate—will simply not enforce it until 2015. Every large employer in the country is under the mandate. If they don’t comply, then they are breaking federal law.
But the IRS not enforcing Section 1513 is like a policeman who patrols a stretch of road who says for the next year, he won’t issue any speeding tickets. He has no authority to suspend the law, but if he chooses to violate his duty by failing to enforce the law, then to all the motorists on the road it’s as if the law does not exist.
However, the White House is doing nothing to stop Section 1501’s Individual Mandate. Almost every American is still being commanded to buy insurance or face a penalty (now called a “tax” by the Supreme Court). If you work at a large company, you might be on your own and need to buy insurance somewhere else.
This will force millions of Americans instead to purchase insurance on government-run healthcare exchanges. Not able to get insurance at work, and not able to buy full-price policies on the individual market because of the enormous increase in prices resulting from the ACA’s laundry list of new entitlements and mandates, these individuals will buy it on a state-based exchange where the prices are heavily subsidized by taxpayers.
It’s worth noting that the ACA only subsidizes insurance policies on an exchange run by a state. Yet 34 states have refused to join this government-run debacle, so in those states the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will set them up.
This is why the IRS issued a regulation last year saying that these tax credits for state-run exchanges also extend to HHS-run exchanges. Several lawsuits are now underway challenging the IRS Rule, and they should quickly lead to federal courts striking down the regulation.
In the meantime, though, this will drive millions of Americans onto government-run healthcare, conditioning them to think of it as an entitlement. By promising them all the benefits now but delaying the massive costs until after the 2014 midterm election, Obama and his team hope to buy themselves a couple years to make this system work.
Bad policy makes for bad politics, however; sooner or later everyone has to pay the piper. Maybe Obama will delay the most onerous parts of Obamacare until after the 2014 elections in an attempt to keep the Senate and retake the House, but it might take a miracle to keep this shell game going until after the 2016 election, when voters decide on a new president and what direction we take as a nation.
Whether Obamacare remains the law of the land will be at the center of that national discussion for 2016. Suspending the Employer Mandate just added to that debate.
Breitbart News legal columnist Ken Klukowski is on faculty at Liberty University School of Law and is one of the lawyers involved with Obamacare litigation.
Reported by Breitbart 56 minutes ago.
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Obamacare employer mandate delayed to 2015
Obamacare employer mandate delayed to 2015
Businesses won't be penalized next year if they fail to provide workers health insurance after the Obama administration decided to delay a key requirement under its signature 2010 health care law. The decision pushes the issue past the 2014 midterm congressional elections, as Republicans have sought to make the health law a symbol of government overreach. Two Obama administration officials, who discussed the move before the announcement on condition that they not be identified, said the administration decided to wait until 2015 before enforcing the employer mandate in order to simplify reporting requirements and give businesses more time to adjust their health care coverage. Recognized 'obvious'Randy Johnson, senior vice president of labor, immigration and employee benefits at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest business lobby, praised the move. The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act allows the Obama administration to set the starting date for the employer coverage reporting requirement that's the linchpin of the mandate. Reported by SFGate 2 hours ago.
Businesses won't be penalized next year if they fail to provide workers health insurance after the Obama administration decided to delay a key requirement under its signature 2010 health care law. The decision pushes the issue past the 2014 midterm congressional elections, as Republicans have sought to make the health law a symbol of government overreach. Two Obama administration officials, who discussed the move before the announcement on condition that they not be identified, said the administration decided to wait until 2015 before enforcing the employer mandate in order to simplify reporting requirements and give businesses more time to adjust their health care coverage. Recognized 'obvious'Randy Johnson, senior vice president of labor, immigration and employee benefits at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest business lobby, praised the move. The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act allows the Obama administration to set the starting date for the employer coverage reporting requirement that's the linchpin of the mandate. Reported by SFGate 2 hours ago.
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Obama delays healthcare insurance requirement on employers till 2015
Businesses welcome announcement that key Obamacare provision will not be implemented until after the next election
The US administration has announced that it will not require employers to provide health insurance for their workers until 2015, delaying a key provision of President Obama's healthcare reform law by a year, to beyond the next election.
The move raises questions about the future of other provisions of the law, including the mandate for individuals to obtain health coverage in 2014. Businesses and their lobbyists have complained loudly about the reporting requirements for companies that employ 50 or more full-time workers.
Retailers and other business interests welcomed the change, which analysts said could stop a main avenue of attack on Obama's signature domestic policy achievement as campaigning for the 2014 midterm congressional election gets under way later this year.
Republicans called it evidence that Obama's plan was a failure, while Democrats termed it a demonstration of flexibility.
Whether that flexibility opens the door to further changes in the healthcare law is now a matter of debate. The law, popularly known as Obamacare, was passed in 2010 and upheld a year ago by the US Supreme Court.
"If this is negotiable, it seems like anything is negotiable," said Malcolm Slee, a tax lawyer working with businesses on healthcare implementation.
Companies would have had to pay the Internal Revenue Service $2,000 for each full-time employee who did not get health coverage, beginning 1 January, when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is scheduled to come into full effect.
"This is designed to meet two goals," Mark Mazur, the Treasury department's assistant secretary for tax policy, said in a government blog. "It will allow us to consider ways to simplify the new reporting requirements consistent with the 2010 law. Second, it will provide time to adapt health coverage and reporting systems while employers are moving toward making health coverage affordable and accessible."
Mazur said the administration would publish formal guidance describing the changes within the next week.
Edward Lenz, senior counsel of the American Staffing Association, an employment and recruiting industry group, said administration officials briefed his organisation on Tuesday, portraying the delay as a "practice year" for businesses.
"In our conversation this afternoon with representatives from the administration, they are expecting employers to voluntarily go forward with these rules," he said.
Trade groups representing retailers and restaurants, among those expected to be hit hardest by the mandate, welcomed the one-year extension.
"We commend the administration's wise move," said National Retail Federation vice-president Neil Trautwein. "This one-year delay will provide employers and businesses more time to update their healthcare coverage without threat of arbitrary punishment."
Some analysts saw the change as a responsible move to accommodate smaller businesses. It could also help the public education campaign to persuade the uninsured to sign up for coverage.
"It takes away one of the potential sources of criticism and frankly negative stories that were likely to materialise in the fall," said Larry Levitt, of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks healthcare issues.
Republican lawmakers seized on the announcement as evidence that the healthcare reform they have repeatedly sought to repeal represented a flawed administration policy.
House of representatives speaker John Boehner said the administration should now provide relief to individuals who face a penalty if they do not obtain health coverage by 2014. The so-called individual mandate will begin next year at $95, or 1% of taxable household income and rise in phases to $695 per person, with a cap of 2.5% of household income, by 2016.
"This is a clear acknowledgment that the law is unworkable, and it underscores the need to repeal the law and replace it with effective, patient-centred reforms," Boehner said in a statement.
But Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for senate majority leader Harry Reid, said the change would help to make Obamacare as beneficial as possible by allowing the administration to work with business stakeholders. "It is better to do this right than fast," he said.
The administration has already delayed insurance offerings for small businesses that were to be made available through new online exchanges. A recent report by a watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, also called into question whether new insurance marketplaces for millions of individuals would meet an 1 October deadline for open enrolment.
The importance of the decision contrasted with how it was announced: through two low-key blog posts on Tuesday evening, one on the website of the Treasury department and the other at www.whitehouse.gov at a time when Obama was travelling and congress was in recess for the Fourth of July holiday.
Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama, said in a blogpost on Tuesday that the government was fully prepared to open the new insurance exchanges for individuals in October. While the nation's largest employers already offer extensive health benefits to their full-time employees, many small and mid-sized companies will now be required to provide insurance for the first time.
Tuesday's delay also raised questions about initial funding for Obamacare. The employer mandate is expected to raise $140bn in revenues over the next 10 years, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. The CBO estimates that the individual mandate will bring in a further $45bn.
"It does undermine some of the funding," said Julie Barnes, of the healthcare consulting firm Breakaway Policy. Reported by guardian.co.uk 21 hours ago.
The US administration has announced that it will not require employers to provide health insurance for their workers until 2015, delaying a key provision of President Obama's healthcare reform law by a year, to beyond the next election.
The move raises questions about the future of other provisions of the law, including the mandate for individuals to obtain health coverage in 2014. Businesses and their lobbyists have complained loudly about the reporting requirements for companies that employ 50 or more full-time workers.
Retailers and other business interests welcomed the change, which analysts said could stop a main avenue of attack on Obama's signature domestic policy achievement as campaigning for the 2014 midterm congressional election gets under way later this year.
Republicans called it evidence that Obama's plan was a failure, while Democrats termed it a demonstration of flexibility.
Whether that flexibility opens the door to further changes in the healthcare law is now a matter of debate. The law, popularly known as Obamacare, was passed in 2010 and upheld a year ago by the US Supreme Court.
"If this is negotiable, it seems like anything is negotiable," said Malcolm Slee, a tax lawyer working with businesses on healthcare implementation.
Companies would have had to pay the Internal Revenue Service $2,000 for each full-time employee who did not get health coverage, beginning 1 January, when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is scheduled to come into full effect.
"This is designed to meet two goals," Mark Mazur, the Treasury department's assistant secretary for tax policy, said in a government blog. "It will allow us to consider ways to simplify the new reporting requirements consistent with the 2010 law. Second, it will provide time to adapt health coverage and reporting systems while employers are moving toward making health coverage affordable and accessible."
Mazur said the administration would publish formal guidance describing the changes within the next week.
Edward Lenz, senior counsel of the American Staffing Association, an employment and recruiting industry group, said administration officials briefed his organisation on Tuesday, portraying the delay as a "practice year" for businesses.
"In our conversation this afternoon with representatives from the administration, they are expecting employers to voluntarily go forward with these rules," he said.
Trade groups representing retailers and restaurants, among those expected to be hit hardest by the mandate, welcomed the one-year extension.
"We commend the administration's wise move," said National Retail Federation vice-president Neil Trautwein. "This one-year delay will provide employers and businesses more time to update their healthcare coverage without threat of arbitrary punishment."
Some analysts saw the change as a responsible move to accommodate smaller businesses. It could also help the public education campaign to persuade the uninsured to sign up for coverage.
"It takes away one of the potential sources of criticism and frankly negative stories that were likely to materialise in the fall," said Larry Levitt, of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks healthcare issues.
Republican lawmakers seized on the announcement as evidence that the healthcare reform they have repeatedly sought to repeal represented a flawed administration policy.
House of representatives speaker John Boehner said the administration should now provide relief to individuals who face a penalty if they do not obtain health coverage by 2014. The so-called individual mandate will begin next year at $95, or 1% of taxable household income and rise in phases to $695 per person, with a cap of 2.5% of household income, by 2016.
"This is a clear acknowledgment that the law is unworkable, and it underscores the need to repeal the law and replace it with effective, patient-centred reforms," Boehner said in a statement.
But Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for senate majority leader Harry Reid, said the change would help to make Obamacare as beneficial as possible by allowing the administration to work with business stakeholders. "It is better to do this right than fast," he said.
The administration has already delayed insurance offerings for small businesses that were to be made available through new online exchanges. A recent report by a watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, also called into question whether new insurance marketplaces for millions of individuals would meet an 1 October deadline for open enrolment.
The importance of the decision contrasted with how it was announced: through two low-key blog posts on Tuesday evening, one on the website of the Treasury department and the other at www.whitehouse.gov at a time when Obama was travelling and congress was in recess for the Fourth of July holiday.
Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama, said in a blogpost on Tuesday that the government was fully prepared to open the new insurance exchanges for individuals in October. While the nation's largest employers already offer extensive health benefits to their full-time employees, many small and mid-sized companies will now be required to provide insurance for the first time.
Tuesday's delay also raised questions about initial funding for Obamacare. The employer mandate is expected to raise $140bn in revenues over the next 10 years, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. The CBO estimates that the individual mandate will bring in a further $45bn.
"It does undermine some of the funding," said Julie Barnes, of the healthcare consulting firm Breakaway Policy. Reported by guardian.co.uk 21 hours ago.
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Kwiksure Examines Whether Genetic Screening Tests Would be Covered by Insurers
In light of recent research developing a test to screen for Inborn Errors of Metabolism disorders, Kwiksure examines if genetic screening tests could be covered by insurers.
Hong Kong (PRWEB) July 03, 2013
According to the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), one out of 4000 babies born in Hong Kong will be diagnosed with Inborn Errors of Metabolism (IEM). These metabolic disorders can lead to several health defects but recent research has developed a genetic screening test to detect IEM at an early stage. In light of this, Kwiksure chose to examine whether this new genetic screening program would be covered by a health insurance policy.
IEM disorders are often caused by a defect in the metabolic pathway, typically arising from a lack of an enzyme to process materials through to the end products, leaving excess metabolic intermediate products in the body which can result in several health defects.
Many IEMs can have a severe impact on the development of an infant and can lead to mental retardation and even death in extreme cases. Recently CUHK, together with sponsorship from the Joshua Hellmann Foundation for Orphan Disease (JHF), developed a Newborn Metabolic screening program designed to test for 30 different metabolic conditions as soon as the a baby is born.
Upon early diagnosis, appropriate preventative action, such as taking medication or diet adjustments, can minimize the manifestation of symptoms later in life. These screening tests will cost around $800 HKD however, as the test would be classed as a genetic screening program, the chances of a health insurance policy covering the tests would be unlikely.
A senior insurance adviser at Kwiksure explained the reasons behind this and as this screening test would be considered as a preventative test, it would likely be deemed as medically unnecessary by the insurance provider and therefore no coverage would be provided.
Furthermore, should the baby be found to have an IEM disorder but has yet to show any symptoms, an insurer will also be unlikely to pay for treatment if required. There are exceptions made by a few insurers, but this is quite rare.
Some maternity insurance policies may provide free newborn insurance coverage for a limited time but tend to only cover diseases that are already present at birth. Parents of newborns will have to weigh the pros and cons of such genetic screening tests, though preventative action may cut medical costs significantly in the long run. Reported by PRWeb 19 hours ago.
Hong Kong (PRWEB) July 03, 2013
According to the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), one out of 4000 babies born in Hong Kong will be diagnosed with Inborn Errors of Metabolism (IEM). These metabolic disorders can lead to several health defects but recent research has developed a genetic screening test to detect IEM at an early stage. In light of this, Kwiksure chose to examine whether this new genetic screening program would be covered by a health insurance policy.
IEM disorders are often caused by a defect in the metabolic pathway, typically arising from a lack of an enzyme to process materials through to the end products, leaving excess metabolic intermediate products in the body which can result in several health defects.
Many IEMs can have a severe impact on the development of an infant and can lead to mental retardation and even death in extreme cases. Recently CUHK, together with sponsorship from the Joshua Hellmann Foundation for Orphan Disease (JHF), developed a Newborn Metabolic screening program designed to test for 30 different metabolic conditions as soon as the a baby is born.
Upon early diagnosis, appropriate preventative action, such as taking medication or diet adjustments, can minimize the manifestation of symptoms later in life. These screening tests will cost around $800 HKD however, as the test would be classed as a genetic screening program, the chances of a health insurance policy covering the tests would be unlikely.
A senior insurance adviser at Kwiksure explained the reasons behind this and as this screening test would be considered as a preventative test, it would likely be deemed as medically unnecessary by the insurance provider and therefore no coverage would be provided.
Furthermore, should the baby be found to have an IEM disorder but has yet to show any symptoms, an insurer will also be unlikely to pay for treatment if required. There are exceptions made by a few insurers, but this is quite rare.
Some maternity insurance policies may provide free newborn insurance coverage for a limited time but tend to only cover diseases that are already present at birth. Parents of newborns will have to weigh the pros and cons of such genetic screening tests, though preventative action may cut medical costs significantly in the long run. Reported by PRWeb 19 hours ago.
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White House delays key element of health care law
White House delays key element of health care law
Associated Press
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Updated 3:48 am, Wednesday, July 3, 2013
On Tuesday, the administration unexpectedly announced a one-year delay, until after the 2014 elections, in a central requirement of the law that medium and large companies provide coverage for their workers or face fines. Separately, opposition in the states from Republican governors and legislators has steadily undermined a Medicaid expansion that had been expected to provide coverage to some 15 million low-income people. Tuesday's move — which caught administration allies and adversaries by surprise — sacrificed timely implementation of Obama's signature legislation but might help Democrats politically by blunting an election-year line of attack Republicans were planning to use. Will employees be able to get taxpayer-subsidized individual coverage through new health insurance markets if their company does not offer medical benefits? "If the administration is going to give employers a break, it should not do that at the expense of millions of uninsured or underinsured workers who have been looking to have health insurance available to them on Jan. 1, 2014," said Richard Kirsch, a senior fellow with the Roosevelt Institute in New York, a think tank dedicated to promoting progressive policies. Under the health law, companies with 50 or more workers must provide affordable coverage to their full-time employees or risk a series of escalating tax penalties if just one worker ends up getting government-subsidized insurance. Most medium-sized and large business already offer health insurance and the mandate was expected to have the biggest consequences for major chain hotels, restaurants and retail stores that employ many low-wage workers. Reported by SeattlePI.com 19 hours ago.
Associated Press
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Updated 3:48 am, Wednesday, July 3, 2013
On Tuesday, the administration unexpectedly announced a one-year delay, until after the 2014 elections, in a central requirement of the law that medium and large companies provide coverage for their workers or face fines. Separately, opposition in the states from Republican governors and legislators has steadily undermined a Medicaid expansion that had been expected to provide coverage to some 15 million low-income people. Tuesday's move — which caught administration allies and adversaries by surprise — sacrificed timely implementation of Obama's signature legislation but might help Democrats politically by blunting an election-year line of attack Republicans were planning to use. Will employees be able to get taxpayer-subsidized individual coverage through new health insurance markets if their company does not offer medical benefits? "If the administration is going to give employers a break, it should not do that at the expense of millions of uninsured or underinsured workers who have been looking to have health insurance available to them on Jan. 1, 2014," said Richard Kirsch, a senior fellow with the Roosevelt Institute in New York, a think tank dedicated to promoting progressive policies. Under the health law, companies with 50 or more workers must provide affordable coverage to their full-time employees or risk a series of escalating tax penalties if just one worker ends up getting government-subsidized insurance. Most medium-sized and large business already offer health insurance and the mandate was expected to have the biggest consequences for major chain hotels, restaurants and retail stores that employ many low-wage workers. Reported by SeattlePI.com 19 hours ago.
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ObamaCare Train Wreck Arriving on Schedule
Late Tuesday, the Treasury Department announced it was delaying until 2015 a key component of ObamaCare. Employers with more than 50 employees were originally required to provide insurance or pay a penalty, beginning in 2014. That mandate has been pushed back to 2015, conveniently after next year's midterm elections. This is actually the second delay of a major ObamaCare provision. Last year, the Administration announced it was delaying until 2015 a program that would help employees of small business shop and compare health plans. These delays are an admission that the law is very complicated and will have major consequences on the overall economy.
While businesses will get an extra year to come into compliance with the law, individuals will still be required to have health insurance by 2014. Those workers who otherwise might have been covered by their employer under the law, will now have to purchase their own coverage in the health care exchanges. This wrinkle will no doubt increase confusion surrounding the law.
In three months, health insurance exchanges, where individuals can buy coverage, are set to open in all 50 states. Most of these will be run by the federal government, as only a handful of states have opted to build their own exchange. The Administration will then have 3 months to convince millions of Americans without health insurance to buy coverage. For many, it will be a tough sell.
ObamaCare relies on getting millions of young, healthy people to buy coverage, so their premiums can be used to offset the expanded coverage mandates for others. Without payments from people who don't use health care services, premiums for others in the system would skyrocket.
Nearly half of Americans without insurance, however, are even aware of the requirement that they purchase coverage, according to a recent Gallup poll. The Administration has a very small window to both educate them about the law AND convince them to purchase coverage. Even with federal subsidies, coverage may still be too expensive for many given the economic climate.
If, towards the end of year, it becomes clear that a significant number of the uninsured aren't purchasing coverage, then insurance companies will panic. They will be obligated to meet increased benefits, but without the premiums from people who don't use the health care system to support these benefits.
There is a very good chance the individual mandate will get put off for a year as well.
Reported by Breitbart 17 hours ago.
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Obama Delays Key Health-Insurance Provision Until 2015
Filed under: Health Care, U.S. Government, Health Insurance*AP*
By Eric Brown
The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it would push back the deadline for large employers to provide health insurance for their workers, a key part of the health care reform, until 2015.
Under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, businesses with more than 50 employees were to be required to provide health care for all full-time workers by Jan. 1, 2014, or pay a $2,000 fine for each uninsured employee. The New York Times notes that the Obama administration's new deadline of Jan. 1, 2015, is past the 2014 midterm elections, as Republican lawmakers continue to call for a repeal of the entire Affordable Care Act, commonly known as "Obamacare."
"As we implement this law, we have and will continue to make changes as needed. In our ongoing discussions with businesses we have heard that you need the time to get this right," top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett said in the administration's official announcement. "We are listening. So in response to your concerns, we are making two changes."
In the same post, Jarrett also announced that the administration planned to make it easier for employers to report to the government about their workers' health care status. Jarrett described this measure as "cutting the red tape and simplifying the reporting process."
Republican lawmakers endorsed postponing the employer health care deadline, but many state that they will not give up the fight to repeal the Affordable Care Act entirely.
"A delay -- conveniently past the 2014 election -- only adds to the uncertainty these job creators face because of Obamacare," Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said to Reuters. "The only reasonable recourse is to fully repeal this law."
At the same time, administration officials attempted to use this move as a positive point for Obama, stating that he is listening to the concerns of the business community.
"We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively," Mark J. Mazur, an assistant Treasury secretary, wrote on the department's Web site. "We recognize that the vast majority of businesses that will need to do this reporting already provide health insurance to their workers, and we want to make sure it is easy for others to do so."
While the deadline for employers to provide heath care has been pushed back, the Affordable Care Act also includes a provision stating that all Americans without health insurance may suffer tax penalties starting on Jan. 1, 2014. Tuesday's announcement did not change that deadline.
More From IBTimes:
Enrollment In Obamacare Marketplace Opens In 100 Days
GOP: IRS Another Reason To Repeal Obamacare
%Gallery-160096%
Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments Reported by DailyFinance 17 hours ago.
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Senate OKs Hittner as health insurance chief
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The Rhode Island Senate has confirmed the former chief executive of The Miriam Hospital as the state's health insurance commissioner.
Reported by Boston.com 16 hours ago.
Reported by Boston.com 16 hours ago.
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Should the Employer Mandate Be Eliminated Altogether?
This week the Obama administration announced that it was delaying implementation of the "employer mandate" part of Obamacare, so companies won't be required to cover their workers until the beginning of 2015 instead of the beginning of 2014. Their stated reason is that they need more time to work with employers to implement the somewhat complex reporting requirements, and they're trying to be flexible and respond to employers' concerns. Which is probably true, but it's also true that the issue has become something of a political headache, with lots of news stories profiling employers saying the mandate is going to destroy their businesses or lead them to lay off workers and cut back their hours so they don't have to comply.
We'll get to what's true and false about those news stories in a moment, but it's important to understand that the "mandate" isn't really a mandate at all. First, it only applies to businesses with 50 employees or more. And second, if employers still don't want to provide health insurance, they can pay a small fine that is only a fraction of what health insurance costs. So if you're an employer who really, really doesn't want to give his employees health insurance, you won't have to.
As Sarah Kliff suggests, delaying the mandate now to ease the political pressure won't make it any easier a year from now, and may make it worse, since opponents will be emboldened by this delay, seeing it as a victory in their unending war on Obamacare. That's possible, but it's also a sign of how demented this whole process is. Instead of everyone trying to make sure the law takes effect with a minimum of disruption and goes as far as possible to accomplish the goals everyone says they agree on, you have powerful forces (one political party, well-funded private interests) working day and night to make sure it fails.
Now, to those news stories. You've undoubtedly seen them, a profile of an employer with 48 workers who says, "I'd love to hire more people, but then I'd have to give them health insurance! Obamacare's burdensome regulations are killing my business!" These employers are easy to find, because all a reporter has to do is call up a group like the National Federation of Independent Business, a conservative interest group, and they'll be happy to hook the reporter up with one. But in the real world, they're actually pretty rare. For starters, how many businesses are there that have exactly 48 or 49 employees, so they're about to cross that threshold? Not too many. And how many of those don't already offer health insurance? Fewer still.
Ninety-eight percent of firms with over 200 employees already provide health insurance, as do 94 percent of those with between 50 and 199 employees. Among firms with 25-49 employees, the ones that might be on the cusp, 87 percent already provide insurance. So the guy you see on the news complaining about it? He's basically Ebeneezer Scrooge, the guy who, unlike nearly all his peers, won't give his employees the benefits that would make their lives a little more secure.
For the record, I think we should scrap the system of people getting insurance through their employers altogether. If you work for Scrooge, you may have to put up with his ill-treatment and poor wages, but at least you shouldn't have to rely on him for your health coverage as well. It no longer makes economic sense, either. The chief benefit of employer-provided insurance is that people can get more affordable insurance when they band together in groups, but now that we have an individual mandate that puts everyone in the same market, we can (with the right adjustment of the insurance rules) all be one big group, or at least one big group per state. The only real argument in favor of maintaining the employer-based system is inertia: it may be riddled with problems, but we've been doing it this way for a long time, and changing would be a hassle.
Which is true enough, but it's not particularly persuasive. In the meantime, even some liberal health wonks think Obamacare's version of an employer mandate was poorly designed and ought to be eliminated (here's Ezra Klein making the case). Given that we're talking about a relatively small number of employers, that wouldn't be a huge deal, and after all, the law's supporters have said from the beginning that as with any complex piece of legislation, there will have to be tweaks and adjustments as it's implemented. But the Obama administration is unlikely to consider scrapping it, since that would be a victory they couldn't bear giving their critics. Reported by The American Prospect 15 hours ago.
We'll get to what's true and false about those news stories in a moment, but it's important to understand that the "mandate" isn't really a mandate at all. First, it only applies to businesses with 50 employees or more. And second, if employers still don't want to provide health insurance, they can pay a small fine that is only a fraction of what health insurance costs. So if you're an employer who really, really doesn't want to give his employees health insurance, you won't have to.
As Sarah Kliff suggests, delaying the mandate now to ease the political pressure won't make it any easier a year from now, and may make it worse, since opponents will be emboldened by this delay, seeing it as a victory in their unending war on Obamacare. That's possible, but it's also a sign of how demented this whole process is. Instead of everyone trying to make sure the law takes effect with a minimum of disruption and goes as far as possible to accomplish the goals everyone says they agree on, you have powerful forces (one political party, well-funded private interests) working day and night to make sure it fails.
Now, to those news stories. You've undoubtedly seen them, a profile of an employer with 48 workers who says, "I'd love to hire more people, but then I'd have to give them health insurance! Obamacare's burdensome regulations are killing my business!" These employers are easy to find, because all a reporter has to do is call up a group like the National Federation of Independent Business, a conservative interest group, and they'll be happy to hook the reporter up with one. But in the real world, they're actually pretty rare. For starters, how many businesses are there that have exactly 48 or 49 employees, so they're about to cross that threshold? Not too many. And how many of those don't already offer health insurance? Fewer still.
Ninety-eight percent of firms with over 200 employees already provide health insurance, as do 94 percent of those with between 50 and 199 employees. Among firms with 25-49 employees, the ones that might be on the cusp, 87 percent already provide insurance. So the guy you see on the news complaining about it? He's basically Ebeneezer Scrooge, the guy who, unlike nearly all his peers, won't give his employees the benefits that would make their lives a little more secure.
For the record, I think we should scrap the system of people getting insurance through their employers altogether. If you work for Scrooge, you may have to put up with his ill-treatment and poor wages, but at least you shouldn't have to rely on him for your health coverage as well. It no longer makes economic sense, either. The chief benefit of employer-provided insurance is that people can get more affordable insurance when they band together in groups, but now that we have an individual mandate that puts everyone in the same market, we can (with the right adjustment of the insurance rules) all be one big group, or at least one big group per state. The only real argument in favor of maintaining the employer-based system is inertia: it may be riddled with problems, but we've been doing it this way for a long time, and changing would be a hassle.
Which is true enough, but it's not particularly persuasive. In the meantime, even some liberal health wonks think Obamacare's version of an employer mandate was poorly designed and ought to be eliminated (here's Ezra Klein making the case). Given that we're talking about a relatively small number of employers, that wouldn't be a huge deal, and after all, the law's supporters have said from the beginning that as with any complex piece of legislation, there will have to be tweaks and adjustments as it's implemented. But the Obama administration is unlikely to consider scrapping it, since that would be a victory they couldn't bear giving their critics. Reported by The American Prospect 15 hours ago.
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Will Obamacare cover midwives and birthing centers?
*Will Obamacare cover midwives and birthing centers?*
*Q. *Now that all kinds of health insurance must cover maternity care starting in 2014, will the plans also have to pay for midwives and deliveries in birthing centers?
*A. *Midwives, probably. Birthing centers, maybe.
Right now, "private insurance policies vary with regard to coverage of the services of a midwife," says Damaris Hay, a media relations specialist with the American College of Nurse-Midwives, the major midwifery professional organization.
That will change come 2014, because as of that date health plans may no longer discriminate against different types of health providers who are practicing in line with their professional licensing. What this means is that health plans will no longer be allowed to contract only with obstetricians to deliver maternity services. They'll have to offer network participation to midwives on the same terms as doctors as long as they are appropriately licensed, which they are in every state. (Read more about midwives and other alternative providers in our new report, The Nurse Practitioner Will See You Now.)
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For more information, see our Health Insurance Buying Guide as well as rankings of health insurance plans.
Got a question for me? Ask it here. Please include the state you live in.
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That doesn't mean midwives will automatically be part of your plan's network, just that they'll have to be offered the opportunity to join as long as they "abide by the terms and conditions for participation," Hay said.
So come this fall, if you're shopping for a new plan on your state's Marketplace, check to see if midwives are on the provider list for maternity care.
As for coverage of childbirth outside of a regular hospital, that's up to each individual state. Forty-one states currently license birth centers, according to this map from the American Association of Birth Centers. This group also says that many insurance plans cover birth center deliveries. So if you're interested in one, again the thing to do is check with the plans you're considering this fall.
If you are or will be covered by Medicaid, you should know that the Affordable Care Act already requires all state Medicaid plans to cover midwifery services, and also pay for delivery in freestanding birth centers in states where they are licensed. And see what else the Affordable Care Act means for pregnant women and new moms.
*Subscribe now!*
Subscribe to *ConsumerReports.org* for expert Ratings, buying advice and reliability on hundreds of products.
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Update your feed preferences Reported by Consumer Reports 15 hours ago.
*Q. *Now that all kinds of health insurance must cover maternity care starting in 2014, will the plans also have to pay for midwives and deliveries in birthing centers?
*A. *Midwives, probably. Birthing centers, maybe.
Right now, "private insurance policies vary with regard to coverage of the services of a midwife," says Damaris Hay, a media relations specialist with the American College of Nurse-Midwives, the major midwifery professional organization.
That will change come 2014, because as of that date health plans may no longer discriminate against different types of health providers who are practicing in line with their professional licensing. What this means is that health plans will no longer be allowed to contract only with obstetricians to deliver maternity services. They'll have to offer network participation to midwives on the same terms as doctors as long as they are appropriately licensed, which they are in every state. (Read more about midwives and other alternative providers in our new report, The Nurse Practitioner Will See You Now.)
--------------------
For more information, see our Health Insurance Buying Guide as well as rankings of health insurance plans.
Got a question for me? Ask it here. Please include the state you live in.
--------------------
That doesn't mean midwives will automatically be part of your plan's network, just that they'll have to be offered the opportunity to join as long as they "abide by the terms and conditions for participation," Hay said.
So come this fall, if you're shopping for a new plan on your state's Marketplace, check to see if midwives are on the provider list for maternity care.
As for coverage of childbirth outside of a regular hospital, that's up to each individual state. Forty-one states currently license birth centers, according to this map from the American Association of Birth Centers. This group also says that many insurance plans cover birth center deliveries. So if you're interested in one, again the thing to do is check with the plans you're considering this fall.
If you are or will be covered by Medicaid, you should know that the Affordable Care Act already requires all state Medicaid plans to cover midwifery services, and also pay for delivery in freestanding birth centers in states where they are licensed. And see what else the Affordable Care Act means for pregnant women and new moms.
*Subscribe now!*
Subscribe to *ConsumerReports.org* for expert Ratings, buying advice and reliability on hundreds of products.
--------------------
Update your feed preferences Reported by Consumer Reports 15 hours ago.
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Obamacare Delayed By One Year: What Does It Mean? 6 Questions And Answers
Confused by last night's bombshell white flag of defeat by the Obama administration which delayed the implementation of the employer mandate, aka the "shared-responsibility rules" by one year until 2015 derailing the public education campaign that the rollout of Obamacare was set to take place in October? Then the following list of 6 questions and answers from Politico analyzing the ins and out of the decision is for you.
*From Politico: 6 questions about the Obamacare mandate*
*Does this derail Obamacare?*
It doesn’t derail it. But it hurts, at least in how the public sees it and how the critics can talk about it.
Polls have already shown that Americans still don’t know much and have a lot of misperceptions about the 3-year-old law. This won’t help, particularly with the critics emboldened to talk about chaotic implementation of a fatally flawed policy.
The administration insists that the new health insurance exchanges or marketplaces will start enrollment on time this Oct. 1. A lot more people will get covered in those new markets than through the employer mandate, which wasn’t as central to the coverage push because most big businesses already offer health benefits. But it could mean that fewer people do get coverage next year.
The announcement gave fresh ammunition to GOP opponents.
Republicans used it to again say that the law should be repealed and replaced. Repeal won’t happen as long as President Barack Obama’s in the White House, but some groups on Tuesday renewed their calls for defunding the health law – a throwback to congressional fights in the previous Congress. Even before this announcement, some in the GOP had been pushing for another funding fight, maybe tied into the coming battles over the debt ceiling. And of course it will resonate in the 2014 House and Senate campaigns.
“Pushing the implementation of the employer mandate until after the 2014 election confirms the law was a historic mistake,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Health Committee.
*Will more health law dominos fall?*
One immediate question people were asking: Is this the only delay the Obama administration will be announcing? Or is it the first in a line of dominos — with the individual mandate being the most important domino. After all, the administration has already delayed until 2015 a key feature in the small-business exchanges that would have given workers more choice in health plans.
And the individual mandate is a prime target for opponents who can say, why should big companies get out of confounding Obamacare rules if an average citizen cannot?
The White House put up a blog post stressing that the main elements of the law will be ready to go in October. And allies said the move Tuesday put a piece of the law — but not the core of it — on hold.
Asked whether the individual mandate could be pushed back, Ron Pollack, head of the Families USA advocacy group said, “I believe that is inconceivable.” The employer mandate is a segment of the law, but the individual mandate is its core.
And don’t expect the individual mandate, which survived a Supreme Court challenge last year, to go down easily. For starters, insurance companies would pitch a fit. They need the individual mandate if they are going to provide costly new services to cover everyone, sick and healthy, as the law requires.
*Why did Treasury have to do this?*
Businesses with more than 50 workers were supposed to provide health insurance starting in 2014 or face a penalty of $2,000 per employee. That’s been put on hold after a noisy outcry from business groups and a lot of commentary about how the law was hurting business as the economic recovery was still fragile.
Business groups said the rules and regulations about employee coverage — who was full time, what kind of benefits they were getting, what requirements were being fulfilled — were cumbersome. So on Tuesday the Treasury, which is responsible for this piece of Obamacare, said it had agreed to go back to the drawing board.
Later this summer, “after a dialogue with stakeholders,” Treasury will try to come up with a streamlined set of regs,”consistent with effective implementation of the law,” an official wrote in a blog post announcing the decision.
*Who will be hurt by the delay?*
Conservative health analysts predicted employers would drop coverage and dump employees into the taxpayer-subsidized exchanges.
“Essentially for calendar 2014 the act of dropping coverage and dumping employees into the exchanges is on sale,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and a former head of the Congressional Budget Office.
More liberal health experts predicted that big business would stick to the status quo. The CBO in the past has said the employer mandate wouldn’t add a lot of newly covered people.
Even though critics of the health law often complain that it’s killing small businesses, any business with 50 or fewer workers is exempt from the coverage rules. They can cover workers — but don’t have to. Those that do may get subsidies, and that’s not changing under the policies announced Tuesday.
Big businesses tend to cover workers already. In 2012, 98 percent of companies with more than 200 employees provided health benefits to their workforce, according to an annual Kaiser Family Foundation survey.
It’s the midsized companies that may have the biggest impact from this delayed policy. But even here, 94 percent of firms with 50 to 199 workers offer coverage, although not necessarily to everyone.
“At the margins, some firms that might have otherwise offered insurance may wait to see how things play out,” said Paul Van de Water, a health policy expert at the Center on Budget workers, especially in the restaurant and retail industries, are likely to see their hours cut by businesses trying to avoid paying the penalties, Brian Haile, senior vice president for health policy at Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, wrote in an email.
And if people do lose coverage on the job — or don’t get coverage at work that they anticipated in 2014 — they can get insurance in the exhanges, possibly qualifying for tax credits depending on their income.
*Who’s pleased about the mandate delay?*
Businesses who don’t have to worry about the rules for another year and Republicans who got more chances to say that Obamacare isn’t ready for prime time — and may never be.
“This announcement means even the Obama administration knows the ‘train wreck’ will only get worse,” House Speaker John Boehner said. “This is a clear acknowledgment that the law is unworkable, and it underscores the need to repeal the law and replace it with effective, patient-centered reforms.”
Democrats were largely silent, but a few did depict the delay as a sign that the law is being implemented responsibly.
“Flexibility is a good thing,” said Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “Both the administration and Senate Democrats have shown — and continue to show — a willingness to be flexible and work with all interested parties to make sure that implementation of the Affordable Care Act is as beneficial as possible to all involved. It is better to do this right than fast.”
*Is there a silver lining for the White House?*
Maybe a few small ones. It should quell some of the outcry from the business community about the paperwork burden, and it may stop some of the drumbeat of businesses cutting their workers’ hours to avoid having to cover anyone who works 30 hours or more. But if that bad news subsides, the pattern of Obamacare is there’s always another critical storyline to replace it. Reported by Zero Hedge 15 hours ago.
*From Politico: 6 questions about the Obamacare mandate*
*Does this derail Obamacare?*
It doesn’t derail it. But it hurts, at least in how the public sees it and how the critics can talk about it.
Polls have already shown that Americans still don’t know much and have a lot of misperceptions about the 3-year-old law. This won’t help, particularly with the critics emboldened to talk about chaotic implementation of a fatally flawed policy.
The administration insists that the new health insurance exchanges or marketplaces will start enrollment on time this Oct. 1. A lot more people will get covered in those new markets than through the employer mandate, which wasn’t as central to the coverage push because most big businesses already offer health benefits. But it could mean that fewer people do get coverage next year.
The announcement gave fresh ammunition to GOP opponents.
Republicans used it to again say that the law should be repealed and replaced. Repeal won’t happen as long as President Barack Obama’s in the White House, but some groups on Tuesday renewed their calls for defunding the health law – a throwback to congressional fights in the previous Congress. Even before this announcement, some in the GOP had been pushing for another funding fight, maybe tied into the coming battles over the debt ceiling. And of course it will resonate in the 2014 House and Senate campaigns.
“Pushing the implementation of the employer mandate until after the 2014 election confirms the law was a historic mistake,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Health Committee.
*Will more health law dominos fall?*
One immediate question people were asking: Is this the only delay the Obama administration will be announcing? Or is it the first in a line of dominos — with the individual mandate being the most important domino. After all, the administration has already delayed until 2015 a key feature in the small-business exchanges that would have given workers more choice in health plans.
And the individual mandate is a prime target for opponents who can say, why should big companies get out of confounding Obamacare rules if an average citizen cannot?
The White House put up a blog post stressing that the main elements of the law will be ready to go in October. And allies said the move Tuesday put a piece of the law — but not the core of it — on hold.
Asked whether the individual mandate could be pushed back, Ron Pollack, head of the Families USA advocacy group said, “I believe that is inconceivable.” The employer mandate is a segment of the law, but the individual mandate is its core.
And don’t expect the individual mandate, which survived a Supreme Court challenge last year, to go down easily. For starters, insurance companies would pitch a fit. They need the individual mandate if they are going to provide costly new services to cover everyone, sick and healthy, as the law requires.
*Why did Treasury have to do this?*
Businesses with more than 50 workers were supposed to provide health insurance starting in 2014 or face a penalty of $2,000 per employee. That’s been put on hold after a noisy outcry from business groups and a lot of commentary about how the law was hurting business as the economic recovery was still fragile.
Business groups said the rules and regulations about employee coverage — who was full time, what kind of benefits they were getting, what requirements were being fulfilled — were cumbersome. So on Tuesday the Treasury, which is responsible for this piece of Obamacare, said it had agreed to go back to the drawing board.
Later this summer, “after a dialogue with stakeholders,” Treasury will try to come up with a streamlined set of regs,”consistent with effective implementation of the law,” an official wrote in a blog post announcing the decision.
*Who will be hurt by the delay?*
Conservative health analysts predicted employers would drop coverage and dump employees into the taxpayer-subsidized exchanges.
“Essentially for calendar 2014 the act of dropping coverage and dumping employees into the exchanges is on sale,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and a former head of the Congressional Budget Office.
More liberal health experts predicted that big business would stick to the status quo. The CBO in the past has said the employer mandate wouldn’t add a lot of newly covered people.
Even though critics of the health law often complain that it’s killing small businesses, any business with 50 or fewer workers is exempt from the coverage rules. They can cover workers — but don’t have to. Those that do may get subsidies, and that’s not changing under the policies announced Tuesday.
Big businesses tend to cover workers already. In 2012, 98 percent of companies with more than 200 employees provided health benefits to their workforce, according to an annual Kaiser Family Foundation survey.
It’s the midsized companies that may have the biggest impact from this delayed policy. But even here, 94 percent of firms with 50 to 199 workers offer coverage, although not necessarily to everyone.
“At the margins, some firms that might have otherwise offered insurance may wait to see how things play out,” said Paul Van de Water, a health policy expert at the Center on Budget workers, especially in the restaurant and retail industries, are likely to see their hours cut by businesses trying to avoid paying the penalties, Brian Haile, senior vice president for health policy at Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, wrote in an email.
And if people do lose coverage on the job — or don’t get coverage at work that they anticipated in 2014 — they can get insurance in the exhanges, possibly qualifying for tax credits depending on their income.
*Who’s pleased about the mandate delay?*
Businesses who don’t have to worry about the rules for another year and Republicans who got more chances to say that Obamacare isn’t ready for prime time — and may never be.
“This announcement means even the Obama administration knows the ‘train wreck’ will only get worse,” House Speaker John Boehner said. “This is a clear acknowledgment that the law is unworkable, and it underscores the need to repeal the law and replace it with effective, patient-centered reforms.”
Democrats were largely silent, but a few did depict the delay as a sign that the law is being implemented responsibly.
“Flexibility is a good thing,” said Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “Both the administration and Senate Democrats have shown — and continue to show — a willingness to be flexible and work with all interested parties to make sure that implementation of the Affordable Care Act is as beneficial as possible to all involved. It is better to do this right than fast.”
*Is there a silver lining for the White House?*
Maybe a few small ones. It should quell some of the outcry from the business community about the paperwork burden, and it may stop some of the drumbeat of businesses cutting their workers’ hours to avoid having to cover anyone who works 30 hours or more. But if that bad news subsides, the pattern of Obamacare is there’s always another critical storyline to replace it. Reported by Zero Hedge 15 hours ago.
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Richard Kirsch: Will Delaying the Employer Mandate Deny Health Coverage to Workers?
The surprise announcement from the Obama administration that it will delay for one year penalizing employers that do not offer health coverage to their workers is the latest capitulation by the White House to big businesses that want to shirk their responsibility to help pay for health insurance. But the decision leaves huge unanswered questions about whether health coverage for uninsured workers will also be denied.
Yesterday, the Treasury issued a notice delaying for one year, until 2015, the requirement that employers of more than 50 full-time employees (3 percent of all employers) report on whether they offer health coverage to their employees. The Affordable Care Act requires that these employers pay penalties when they they do not offer qualified coverage or when their workers access coverage through the new health care exchanges. The Treasury's notice does not change the legal requirement that employers provide coverage, but it effectively negates enforcement of that requirement. The delay comes even though the Treasury has had more than three years to prepare to implement the law and an entire new industry has emerged advising employers on how to comply.
The notice, full of sympathy for employers who have to comply with the reporting requirements, totally ignores the implications for employees. What will happen to workers for companies that do not offer health insurance or that offer coverage that does not meet the law's minimum requirements? These are huge questions, and it is remarkable that the Obama administration would publish the Treasury Department notice without addressing them.
Under the Affordable Care Act, workers who are offered acceptable coverage at work are not eligible to access health insurance through the new health insurance marketplaces ("exchanges"), which offer income-based subsidies to purchase health coverage. These workers must purchase the employer coverage or pay a fine.
So what happens under the Treasury Department rule if the marketplaces have no way to determine whether a worker has been offered qualified coverage? Would the uninsured worker be able to get subsidized coverage? It would be cruel to make employees, most of whom work for low wages, wait another year to get health insurance because the administration is giving big employers a break on reporting. If the administration is going to give employers a break, it should not do so at the expense of millions of uninsured or underinsured workers who have been looking forward to having health insurance available to them on January 1, 2014.
Another question is whether the penalty for not being insured, the individual mandate, would apply to an uninsured employee of a business that does not have to report on whether it is offering coverage and is avoiding the employer mandate penalty. What greater irony than to fine an employee because the Obama administration is eliminating fines for large employers?
The Obama administration's decision continues a history, stemming from the business-friendly version of the Affordable Care Act that emerged from Max Baucus's Senate Finance Committee, of bowing to the demands of big businesses to avoid responsibility for providing affordable coverage to their employees. The Affordable Care Act's only requirement for employers of 50 or more full-time workers is that they offer employers high-deductible plans, which require employees to pay a big chunk of their incomes for the coverage. If employers meet these skimpy provisions, they can avoid paying penalties and their workers are locked into the lousy coverage or required to pay a fine for the privilege of being uninsured. It is not clear how many employers will take this low-road route, but the history of the big low-wage employers - think WalMart and McDonalds - is not encouraging.
What matters now is that the White House treat employees with the same level of concern it has shown big business. To do that, the administration should make it clear that workers who state that they are not offered coverage by their employer, or that the coverage costs more than they can afford or has limited benefits, should be eligible to receive income-based subsidies in the new marketplaces. Simple justice, and the primary goal of the Affordable Care Act of guaranteeing affordable health coverage to all Americans, requires nothing less.
Cross-posted from Next New Deal. Reported by Huffington Post 15 hours ago.
Yesterday, the Treasury issued a notice delaying for one year, until 2015, the requirement that employers of more than 50 full-time employees (3 percent of all employers) report on whether they offer health coverage to their employees. The Affordable Care Act requires that these employers pay penalties when they they do not offer qualified coverage or when their workers access coverage through the new health care exchanges. The Treasury's notice does not change the legal requirement that employers provide coverage, but it effectively negates enforcement of that requirement. The delay comes even though the Treasury has had more than three years to prepare to implement the law and an entire new industry has emerged advising employers on how to comply.
The notice, full of sympathy for employers who have to comply with the reporting requirements, totally ignores the implications for employees. What will happen to workers for companies that do not offer health insurance or that offer coverage that does not meet the law's minimum requirements? These are huge questions, and it is remarkable that the Obama administration would publish the Treasury Department notice without addressing them.
Under the Affordable Care Act, workers who are offered acceptable coverage at work are not eligible to access health insurance through the new health insurance marketplaces ("exchanges"), which offer income-based subsidies to purchase health coverage. These workers must purchase the employer coverage or pay a fine.
So what happens under the Treasury Department rule if the marketplaces have no way to determine whether a worker has been offered qualified coverage? Would the uninsured worker be able to get subsidized coverage? It would be cruel to make employees, most of whom work for low wages, wait another year to get health insurance because the administration is giving big employers a break on reporting. If the administration is going to give employers a break, it should not do so at the expense of millions of uninsured or underinsured workers who have been looking forward to having health insurance available to them on January 1, 2014.
Another question is whether the penalty for not being insured, the individual mandate, would apply to an uninsured employee of a business that does not have to report on whether it is offering coverage and is avoiding the employer mandate penalty. What greater irony than to fine an employee because the Obama administration is eliminating fines for large employers?
The Obama administration's decision continues a history, stemming from the business-friendly version of the Affordable Care Act that emerged from Max Baucus's Senate Finance Committee, of bowing to the demands of big businesses to avoid responsibility for providing affordable coverage to their employees. The Affordable Care Act's only requirement for employers of 50 or more full-time workers is that they offer employers high-deductible plans, which require employees to pay a big chunk of their incomes for the coverage. If employers meet these skimpy provisions, they can avoid paying penalties and their workers are locked into the lousy coverage or required to pay a fine for the privilege of being uninsured. It is not clear how many employers will take this low-road route, but the history of the big low-wage employers - think WalMart and McDonalds - is not encouraging.
What matters now is that the White House treat employees with the same level of concern it has shown big business. To do that, the administration should make it clear that workers who state that they are not offered coverage by their employer, or that the coverage costs more than they can afford or has limited benefits, should be eligible to receive income-based subsidies in the new marketplaces. Simple justice, and the primary goal of the Affordable Care Act of guaranteeing affordable health coverage to all Americans, requires nothing less.
Cross-posted from Next New Deal. Reported by Huffington Post 15 hours ago.
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Mandates Force D.C. Small Businesses into Government Healthcare Exchange
House Oversight Committee members Chairman Darrell Issa, (R-CA), James Lankford (R-OK), and Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking for further information about Obamacare implementation in regards to the recent “small business mandates.” These small mandates limit the ability of small businesses to buy competitive insurance plans for their employees. The White House explanation appears to fly in the face of the actions already taken in Washington, D.C. and Vermont:
The law specifically exempts all firms that have fewer than 50 employees – 96 percent of all firms in the United States or 5.8 million out of 6 million total firms – from any employer responsibility requirements. These 5.8 million firms employ nearly 34 million workers. More than 96 percent of firms with 50 or more employees already offer health insurance to their workers. Less than 0.2 percent of all firms (about 10,000 out of 6 million) may face employer responsibility requirements. Many firms that do not currently offer coverage will be more likely to do so because of lower premiums and wider choices in the Exchange.
The District of Columbia and Vermont particularly appear to be going against measures in the health care law when it comes to small businesses and the mandate, the Committee found. Both D.C. and Vermont passed small business mandates requiring organizations of 50 individuals or fewer to purchase health insurance through state exchanges established under Obamacare. These mandates contradict the health care law, which states qualified employers will not be prevented from selecting health plans offered outside of an exchange.
According to the letter, almost one year after the D.C. Council approved a final bill establishing the D.C. Health Benefit Exchange in December of 2011, seven new members of the D.C. Exchange Authority Board were sworn in by D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray to begin the implementation process. These individuals eventually put forth and moved forward on a proposal in October of 2012 requiring all organizations with 50 or fewer members within the District to purchase coverage through the "Exchange."
The mandate requires all small businesses and individuals not offering health insurance coverage by December 31, 2013, to buy such coverage exclusively through the Exchange. If a small business already offers health insurance coverage, it will be required to purchase coverage through the exchange beginning in 2015. The D.C. City Council tentatively approved the board's proposal in early June.
It is unclear as to how these deadlines will be effected considering the administration announced on Tuesday it would delay the employer mandate until after the 2014 midterm elections. Breitbart News reached out to HHS Public Affairs for comment but received no response.
D.C. Councilman David Catania explained, "By merging the two markets [small business and individual], the Exchange will have sufficient volume and power of aggregation, which will decrease insurance costs for individuals..." In 2016, according to the letter, the definition of a small business in D.C. will increase to include those with 100 employees.
"They claim that D.C. is too small an insurance market, such that people are allowed to buy on or off the exchanges that the exchanges won't work. Now I think it shows the problems of Obamacare to rely on coercion to drag people on to these exchanges to get the exchanges to work," the Heritage Foundation's Chris Jacobs told Breitbart News. Jacobs points out it will be any small business in Washington D.C. that will be targeted. "Any small business with a health insurance plan, you cannot buy them on the private market. You can only buy them through the exchange," he said.
Oversight Committee members argue in their letter, “[T]he District’s proposal to force individuals and small businesses onto its Exchange is inconsistent with principles of consumer choice and competition, which are vital to a well functioning health insurance market.”
Over 150 small businesses and organizations in D.C. wrote a letter to the Chair of the D.C. Exchange Authority Board expressing their protestations, saying they "do not want to be forced to buy the government standardized cookie cutter coverage that would be run through a government run exchange."
The Center for Association Leadership noted that small businesses will not have enough time to figure out the extent of the higher costs and how the costs will affect their businesses. Additionally, they also will not know whether the health insurance plans can meet the grandfathering criteria in order to be exempted from D.C.'s proposal.
Reported by Breitbart 13 hours ago.
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Health insurance commissioner OKs premium hikes
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Many Rhode Islanders will pay more for health coverage next year under new higher premiums approved by the health insurance commissioner, though insurers had sought even steeper hikes.
Reported by Boston.com 12 hours ago.
Reported by Boston.com 12 hours ago.
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Without Mandate Employer Provided Insurance Will Decline
Yesterday the Obama administration announced that it would not be implementing the employer mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act until after the 2014 elections. But back in 2009, the employer mandate was a key to selling the still developing bill to the public.
On June 15, 2009 the CBO issued an estimate of Sen. Ted Kennedy's Affordable Health Choices Act. The results were not good. In fact, Ezra Klein variously called the CBO estimate "fairly devestating" and also labeled it a "catastrophe" and a "bum deal." According to the CBO this early draft of what became Obamacare would cost $1 trilliion dollars and would only cover 16 million additional people by 2019. Very little bang for the buck.
However, proponents of the bill were quick to point out that the version scored by the CBO had a weak individual mandate and completely lacked an employer mandate. Two weeks later, after the bill's authors submitted a new version for scoring, CBO announced better numbers. The cost dropped to around $600 billion and the number of people covered went up to 20 million. The difference maker, according to Ezra Klein, was the inclusion of an employer mandate. Here I'll quote his reaction at length:
The June 15th proposal didn't include an employer mandate. And without one, the news was grim: Employers would drop coverage for 15 million employees and send them to the Health Insurance Exchange where they would need government subsidies to afford health insurance. That meant costs exploded and coverage contracted. Health reform looked like a bum deal.
But oh, what a difference a mandate makes...The June 15 report estimated that 15 million Americans would lose their employer-based coverage under HELP's bill. Today's report estimates that a mere 150,000 will lose their coverage. That's nothing. And it means that a lot more Americans end up insured and the government spends a lot less in subsidies.
I'll have much more on other provisions of the bill later. But the overarching lesson of these CBO reports is simple: You can't do health-care reform -- at least not this kind of health-care reform -- without an employer mandate.
To be fair, Klein was not a fan of a version of the employer mandate that was proposed later. But the point is that without the employer mandate at all, the law was behaved very differently. As Klein put it "You can't do health-care reform -- at least not this kind of health-care reform -- without an employer mandate." What you can do is other types of health care reform, e.g. a move away from the employer based market entirely.
Most of the shifting around that results from not having an employer mandate happens at the beginning of the program. Here's the CBO estimate for that early bill without an employer mandate. If you scroll to the final page you'll see that over two years roughly 14 million people get dumped from employer coverage and 21 million extra people wind up on the exchanges. From that point onward the numbers are relatively steady.
Of course the employer mandate hasn't been repealed, only delayed. Nevertheless, as Avik Roy at Forbes points out, this could turn out to be a key turning point in the decline of employer provided insurance (something he apparently supports):
If you like Obamacare, and you want it to work, you don’t need the employer mandate. Democrats put the employer mandate in Obamacare because the President was worried that, without a mandate, employers would dump coverage, violating his oft-repeated promise that “if you like your plan, you can keep it.” Before Mitt Romney signed Massachusetts’ health-reform bill into law, he vetoed that state’s employer mandate. The heavily Democratic legislature overrode his veto.
Even if the Obama administration’s delay lasts for only one year, that delay will give firms time to restructure their businesses to avoid offering costly coverage, leading to an expansion of the individual insurance market and a shrinkage of the employer-sponsored market. Remember that the administration is not delaying the individual mandate, which requires most Americans to buy health coverage or face a fine.
In other words, even more people will need to forget the President's central promise about Obamacare. CBO said earlier this year that 7 million Americans will lose their employer offered health insurance. With the delay in implementation of the employer mandate, we can expect that number to climb higher.
The administration says they are delaying the mandate to be responsive to businesses. Conservatives have noted that this also takes an unpopular issue off the table for the 2012 election. Given how the 2010 midterms went, that could be important for Democrats.
But you also have to wonder if the President is playing a long game here. Recall that he and various Democrats (including Ezra Klein) have admitted the goal of health reform was to shift the country to a single player plan over time. The exchanges (with the inclusion of a public plan) were a way to get there without having to sell the country on single-payer up front. But as Avik Roy notes above, Obamacare work without the employer mandate. In fact, if your goal is to shift people onto the exchanges, it works even better. Then all that's missing is a public option. Maybe all of this sounds far out but listen to the President talk about this issue. This move could also be part of a larger strategy:
Reported by Breitbart 10 hours ago.
On June 15, 2009 the CBO issued an estimate of Sen. Ted Kennedy's Affordable Health Choices Act. The results were not good. In fact, Ezra Klein variously called the CBO estimate "fairly devestating" and also labeled it a "catastrophe" and a "bum deal." According to the CBO this early draft of what became Obamacare would cost $1 trilliion dollars and would only cover 16 million additional people by 2019. Very little bang for the buck.
However, proponents of the bill were quick to point out that the version scored by the CBO had a weak individual mandate and completely lacked an employer mandate. Two weeks later, after the bill's authors submitted a new version for scoring, CBO announced better numbers. The cost dropped to around $600 billion and the number of people covered went up to 20 million. The difference maker, according to Ezra Klein, was the inclusion of an employer mandate. Here I'll quote his reaction at length:
The June 15th proposal didn't include an employer mandate. And without one, the news was grim: Employers would drop coverage for 15 million employees and send them to the Health Insurance Exchange where they would need government subsidies to afford health insurance. That meant costs exploded and coverage contracted. Health reform looked like a bum deal.
But oh, what a difference a mandate makes...The June 15 report estimated that 15 million Americans would lose their employer-based coverage under HELP's bill. Today's report estimates that a mere 150,000 will lose their coverage. That's nothing. And it means that a lot more Americans end up insured and the government spends a lot less in subsidies.
I'll have much more on other provisions of the bill later. But the overarching lesson of these CBO reports is simple: You can't do health-care reform -- at least not this kind of health-care reform -- without an employer mandate.
To be fair, Klein was not a fan of a version of the employer mandate that was proposed later. But the point is that without the employer mandate at all, the law was behaved very differently. As Klein put it "You can't do health-care reform -- at least not this kind of health-care reform -- without an employer mandate." What you can do is other types of health care reform, e.g. a move away from the employer based market entirely.
Most of the shifting around that results from not having an employer mandate happens at the beginning of the program. Here's the CBO estimate for that early bill without an employer mandate. If you scroll to the final page you'll see that over two years roughly 14 million people get dumped from employer coverage and 21 million extra people wind up on the exchanges. From that point onward the numbers are relatively steady.
Of course the employer mandate hasn't been repealed, only delayed. Nevertheless, as Avik Roy at Forbes points out, this could turn out to be a key turning point in the decline of employer provided insurance (something he apparently supports):
If you like Obamacare, and you want it to work, you don’t need the employer mandate. Democrats put the employer mandate in Obamacare because the President was worried that, without a mandate, employers would dump coverage, violating his oft-repeated promise that “if you like your plan, you can keep it.” Before Mitt Romney signed Massachusetts’ health-reform bill into law, he vetoed that state’s employer mandate. The heavily Democratic legislature overrode his veto.
Even if the Obama administration’s delay lasts for only one year, that delay will give firms time to restructure their businesses to avoid offering costly coverage, leading to an expansion of the individual insurance market and a shrinkage of the employer-sponsored market. Remember that the administration is not delaying the individual mandate, which requires most Americans to buy health coverage or face a fine.
In other words, even more people will need to forget the President's central promise about Obamacare. CBO said earlier this year that 7 million Americans will lose their employer offered health insurance. With the delay in implementation of the employer mandate, we can expect that number to climb higher.
The administration says they are delaying the mandate to be responsive to businesses. Conservatives have noted that this also takes an unpopular issue off the table for the 2012 election. Given how the 2010 midterms went, that could be important for Democrats.
But you also have to wonder if the President is playing a long game here. Recall that he and various Democrats (including Ezra Klein) have admitted the goal of health reform was to shift the country to a single player plan over time. The exchanges (with the inclusion of a public plan) were a way to get there without having to sell the country on single-payer up front. But as Avik Roy notes above, Obamacare work without the employer mandate. In fact, if your goal is to shift people onto the exchanges, it works even better. Then all that's missing is a public option. Maybe all of this sounds far out but listen to the President talk about this issue. This move could also be part of a larger strategy:
Reported by Breitbart 10 hours ago.
↧
The Part-Timer Problem
The Obama Administration’s decision to delay for a year the penalty that employers (in firms of 50 or more employees) must pay if they don’t provide health insurance to their workers shines a light on a problem that may be even more profound than getting health coverage for every American: that is, the decline of the American job.
The employer mandate was designed for an economy in which American workers were employed in what had been normal jobs. In firms of 50 or more, all workers who put in at least 30 hours a week were either to receive coverage from the firm or else the firm would have to pay the government a $2,000 yearly penalty.
Problem is, fewer and fewer workers are putting in 30 hours a week. To begin with, labor-force participation is at its lowest level since women increased their work-force participation in the 1970s. It has declined even during the past four years of so-called recovery. The past four years have also seen a rise in the percentage of workers who are part-timers, who currently constitute 19 percent of the work force. Full-time work has been declining for nearly half-a-century. In 1966, the average workweek was 38.7 hours. Today, it’s 34.5.
One reason for that decline is the economy’s shift away from manufacturing, where the average workweek is 40.8 hours, to services, where it is only 33.4 hours. In the two fastest growing sectors of the economy, it’s even lower than that: 31.6 hours in retail and 26.1 in leisure and hospitality (that is, hotels and restaurants).
What this means is that the percentage of workers whom employers would be required to cover (or pay a fine for not covering) is in long-term, secular decline. There’s anecdotal evidence—the weakest kind of evidence, I know, but the only kind we currently have—that a number of employers were going to accelerate that trend by cutting workers’ weekly hours beneath 30 to avoid the cost of insurance or the cost of the penalty. The Los Angeles Times reported that colleges were cutting back the hours of part-time professors, and that the city of Long Beach was limiting the weekly hours of part-timers to 27. At the direction of Republican Governor Bob McDonnell, the state of Virginia issued a new directive restricting part-timers’ hours to 29-per-week.
Most of the affected workers should be able to buy health insurance—in many cases, with hefty federal subsidies—on the new health exchanges, which are still scheduled to take effect next January 1st. But some undeterminable but still considerable number of them would have had their hours and thus their pay cut if the employer mandate had come into effect then as well.
The deeper problem, however, is that hours have been declining well before universal health insurance was a gleam in President Obama’s eye, and will continue to decline in any case. A saner nation would decouple health insurance from employment and just provide it across the board, but that’s not, alas, the American way. The establishment of health exchanges means that more and more Americans will be able to purchase such decoupled coverage, which is surely a step forward. With the share of involuntary part-timers and temp workers continuing to rise, however, more and more Americans will need subsidized health insurance, and subsidized food purchases and rent and who know what else? Delinking health coverage from jobs is long overdue. What to do about the jobs themselves remains not only an unsolved conundrum, but one that’s almost entirely unaddressed. Reported by The American Prospect 9 hours ago.
The employer mandate was designed for an economy in which American workers were employed in what had been normal jobs. In firms of 50 or more, all workers who put in at least 30 hours a week were either to receive coverage from the firm or else the firm would have to pay the government a $2,000 yearly penalty.
Problem is, fewer and fewer workers are putting in 30 hours a week. To begin with, labor-force participation is at its lowest level since women increased their work-force participation in the 1970s. It has declined even during the past four years of so-called recovery. The past four years have also seen a rise in the percentage of workers who are part-timers, who currently constitute 19 percent of the work force. Full-time work has been declining for nearly half-a-century. In 1966, the average workweek was 38.7 hours. Today, it’s 34.5.
One reason for that decline is the economy’s shift away from manufacturing, where the average workweek is 40.8 hours, to services, where it is only 33.4 hours. In the two fastest growing sectors of the economy, it’s even lower than that: 31.6 hours in retail and 26.1 in leisure and hospitality (that is, hotels and restaurants).
What this means is that the percentage of workers whom employers would be required to cover (or pay a fine for not covering) is in long-term, secular decline. There’s anecdotal evidence—the weakest kind of evidence, I know, but the only kind we currently have—that a number of employers were going to accelerate that trend by cutting workers’ weekly hours beneath 30 to avoid the cost of insurance or the cost of the penalty. The Los Angeles Times reported that colleges were cutting back the hours of part-time professors, and that the city of Long Beach was limiting the weekly hours of part-timers to 27. At the direction of Republican Governor Bob McDonnell, the state of Virginia issued a new directive restricting part-timers’ hours to 29-per-week.
Most of the affected workers should be able to buy health insurance—in many cases, with hefty federal subsidies—on the new health exchanges, which are still scheduled to take effect next January 1st. But some undeterminable but still considerable number of them would have had their hours and thus their pay cut if the employer mandate had come into effect then as well.
The deeper problem, however, is that hours have been declining well before universal health insurance was a gleam in President Obama’s eye, and will continue to decline in any case. A saner nation would decouple health insurance from employment and just provide it across the board, but that’s not, alas, the American way. The establishment of health exchanges means that more and more Americans will be able to purchase such decoupled coverage, which is surely a step forward. With the share of involuntary part-timers and temp workers continuing to rise, however, more and more Americans will need subsidized health insurance, and subsidized food purchases and rent and who know what else? Delinking health coverage from jobs is long overdue. What to do about the jobs themselves remains not only an unsolved conundrum, but one that’s almost entirely unaddressed. Reported by The American Prospect 9 hours ago.
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↧
Zane Benefits Publishes New Guide on Section 105 Medical Reimbursement Plans
New eBook helps small businesses recruit and retain employees.
Park City, UT (PRWEB) July 03, 2013
Today, Zane Benefits, the online alternative to group health insurance, published a new guide on Section 105 Medical Reimbursement Plans.
According to Zane Benefits’ website, the new eBook helps small business owners recruit and retain employees using a Section 105 Medical Reimbursement Plan.
Offering employees health insurance is vital to recruiting and retaining key employees. This is especially true for small businesses.
Less than 50% of small businesses nationwide offer health insurance due to cost or minimum participation requirements of group health insurance. And, they don't know an alternative small business health insurance option exists.
Section 105 Medical Reimbursement Plans, specifically Health Reimbursement Arrangements, provide small businesses a new tool to offer tax-free health benefits without the cost or complication of group health insurance.
The new eBook provides small business owners an executive-level overview to Section 105 Medical Reimbursement Plans.
Click here to read full article.
--
About Zane Benefits
Zane Benefits was founded in 2006 to provide a revolutionized SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) administration platform ("ZaneHRA") for Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) and defined contribution health care. The flagship software provides a 100% paperless administration experience to small businesses and insurance professionals that want to offer better health benefits without a traditional group health insurance plan at lower costs. For more information about ZaneHRA, visit http://www.zanebenefits.com. Reported by PRWeb 8 hours ago.
Park City, UT (PRWEB) July 03, 2013
Today, Zane Benefits, the online alternative to group health insurance, published a new guide on Section 105 Medical Reimbursement Plans.
According to Zane Benefits’ website, the new eBook helps small business owners recruit and retain employees using a Section 105 Medical Reimbursement Plan.
Offering employees health insurance is vital to recruiting and retaining key employees. This is especially true for small businesses.
Less than 50% of small businesses nationwide offer health insurance due to cost or minimum participation requirements of group health insurance. And, they don't know an alternative small business health insurance option exists.
Section 105 Medical Reimbursement Plans, specifically Health Reimbursement Arrangements, provide small businesses a new tool to offer tax-free health benefits without the cost or complication of group health insurance.
The new eBook provides small business owners an executive-level overview to Section 105 Medical Reimbursement Plans.
Click here to read full article.
--
About Zane Benefits
Zane Benefits was founded in 2006 to provide a revolutionized SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) administration platform ("ZaneHRA") for Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) and defined contribution health care. The flagship software provides a 100% paperless administration experience to small businesses and insurance professionals that want to offer better health benefits without a traditional group health insurance plan at lower costs. For more information about ZaneHRA, visit http://www.zanebenefits.com. Reported by PRWeb 8 hours ago.
↧
Will the delay of the employer insurance mandate affect you?
*Will the delay of the employer insurance mandate affect you?*
Late yesterday the Obama administration announced it was giving employers a year's reprieve from the requirement that they either provide affordable insurance for full-time workers or pay a $2,000-a-head assessment.
"We will leave the 'why' analysis to the op-eds and pundits," said DeAnn Friedholm, director of health reform for our advocacy arm, Consumers Union. "More important for us is what does it mean now for consumers?'
The answer is that in the overwhelming majority of cases they will be fine either way. Here's why.
The so-called employer mandate only applies to companies with 50 or more fulltime employees (defined as working 30 hours a week or more) and it was supposed to go into effect in 2014. The vast majority of large employers already provide insurance, even without a mandate: 94 percent of companies with 50 to 199 employees and 98 percent of those with 200 or more. They do this because if they didn't, they'd have a hard time hiring or retaining workers with the skills they need.
--------------------
For more information, see our Health Insurance Buying Guide as well as rankings of health insurance plans.
Got a question for me? Ask it here. Please include the state you live in.
--------------------
Large companies that don't offer health insurance tend to cluster in industries with a lot of low-skilled, low-paid, non-unionized workers. With a year's reprieve from paying the assessment, presumably many of them will go right on not offering a health plan.
But whereas today, low-paid workers without an employer plan often can't afford to buy coverage on their own, their situation will change completely come 2014. As of that date, they will be will be able to compare and purchase comprehensive health insurance on their state's Marketplace. An individual with an income between $11,500 and $46,000, or a family of four earning between $23,500 and $94,000, will qualify for a new kind of tax credit that they can use right away to help bring the premium down to a more affordable number. Households at the lower end of that range will also qualify for reduced out-of- pocket costs such as deductibles and copays. For more on how these new tax credits will work, download our free booklet.
*Subscribe now!*
Subscribe to *ConsumerReports.org* for expert Ratings, buying advice and reliability on hundreds of products.
--------------------
Update your feed preferences Reported by Consumer Reports 3 hours ago.
Late yesterday the Obama administration announced it was giving employers a year's reprieve from the requirement that they either provide affordable insurance for full-time workers or pay a $2,000-a-head assessment.
"We will leave the 'why' analysis to the op-eds and pundits," said DeAnn Friedholm, director of health reform for our advocacy arm, Consumers Union. "More important for us is what does it mean now for consumers?'
The answer is that in the overwhelming majority of cases they will be fine either way. Here's why.
The so-called employer mandate only applies to companies with 50 or more fulltime employees (defined as working 30 hours a week or more) and it was supposed to go into effect in 2014. The vast majority of large employers already provide insurance, even without a mandate: 94 percent of companies with 50 to 199 employees and 98 percent of those with 200 or more. They do this because if they didn't, they'd have a hard time hiring or retaining workers with the skills they need.
--------------------
For more information, see our Health Insurance Buying Guide as well as rankings of health insurance plans.
Got a question for me? Ask it here. Please include the state you live in.
--------------------
Large companies that don't offer health insurance tend to cluster in industries with a lot of low-skilled, low-paid, non-unionized workers. With a year's reprieve from paying the assessment, presumably many of them will go right on not offering a health plan.
But whereas today, low-paid workers without an employer plan often can't afford to buy coverage on their own, their situation will change completely come 2014. As of that date, they will be will be able to compare and purchase comprehensive health insurance on their state's Marketplace. An individual with an income between $11,500 and $46,000, or a family of four earning between $23,500 and $94,000, will qualify for a new kind of tax credit that they can use right away to help bring the premium down to a more affordable number. Households at the lower end of that range will also qualify for reduced out-of- pocket costs such as deductibles and copays. For more on how these new tax credits will work, download our free booklet.
*Subscribe now!*
Subscribe to *ConsumerReports.org* for expert Ratings, buying advice and reliability on hundreds of products.
--------------------
Update your feed preferences Reported by Consumer Reports 3 hours ago.
↧
Q&A on impact of health law delay on businesses
Q&A on impact of health law delay on businesses
Associated Press
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Updated 2:21 pm, Wednesday, July 3, 2013
A one-year delay in a central part of the health care overhaul is likely to have its biggest impact on small and medium-sized businesses, not the number of people who will be gain health insurance coverage. The Obama administration said Tuesday that it would postpone until Jan. 1, 2015, the effective date of what's called the employer mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act. Treasury Assistant Secretary Mark Mazur said in a blog post that the government was responding to complaints about the law, which has many regulations and rules for businesses to follow. Congressional Budget Office forecasts show that most of the people who gain coverage are expected to do so either through an expansion of the state-federal Medicaid program that begins next year or by buying a policy through new health insurance exchanges slated to start operating this fall. The employer mandate mainly serves as a way to dissuade large employers from dumping their workers on the exchanges, where federal money might be used to help them buy coverage, Citi analyst Gary Taylor said in a research note, adding that it has little to do with the expansion of coverage. A. Under the health law, companies with 50 or more workers must provide affordable coverage to their full-time employees or risk a series of escalating tax penalties if just one worker ends up getting government-subsidized insurance. Ninety-eight percent of all companies with at least 200 workers provided health benefits to their employees last year, according to an annual survey done by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research & Educational Trust. A. It's fair to say many are relieved — uncertainty over the costs of health insurance has contributed to their anxiety about their revenue and the economy, and to their reluctance to hire or expand. [...] the insurance companies' rates are learned, it's impossible to do the math and figure out whether you're going to buy insurance. [...] companies that are already providing insurance can shop on the exchanges for a better deal. [...] all companies with at least 50 workers can decide whether it's better for them economically to provide insurance, or, when the law goes into effect, forgo coverage and pay the government a $2,000 per employee penalty. Reported by SeattlePI.com 8 hours ago.
Associated Press
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Updated 2:21 pm, Wednesday, July 3, 2013
A one-year delay in a central part of the health care overhaul is likely to have its biggest impact on small and medium-sized businesses, not the number of people who will be gain health insurance coverage. The Obama administration said Tuesday that it would postpone until Jan. 1, 2015, the effective date of what's called the employer mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act. Treasury Assistant Secretary Mark Mazur said in a blog post that the government was responding to complaints about the law, which has many regulations and rules for businesses to follow. Congressional Budget Office forecasts show that most of the people who gain coverage are expected to do so either through an expansion of the state-federal Medicaid program that begins next year or by buying a policy through new health insurance exchanges slated to start operating this fall. The employer mandate mainly serves as a way to dissuade large employers from dumping their workers on the exchanges, where federal money might be used to help them buy coverage, Citi analyst Gary Taylor said in a research note, adding that it has little to do with the expansion of coverage. A. Under the health law, companies with 50 or more workers must provide affordable coverage to their full-time employees or risk a series of escalating tax penalties if just one worker ends up getting government-subsidized insurance. Ninety-eight percent of all companies with at least 200 workers provided health benefits to their employees last year, according to an annual survey done by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research & Educational Trust. A. It's fair to say many are relieved — uncertainty over the costs of health insurance has contributed to their anxiety about their revenue and the economy, and to their reluctance to hire or expand. [...] the insurance companies' rates are learned, it's impossible to do the math and figure out whether you're going to buy insurance. [...] companies that are already providing insurance can shop on the exchanges for a better deal. [...] all companies with at least 50 workers can decide whether it's better for them economically to provide insurance, or, when the law goes into effect, forgo coverage and pay the government a $2,000 per employee penalty. Reported by SeattlePI.com 8 hours ago.
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More Pages to Explore .....
