In May 2021, the Department of Health and Human Services reversed a Trump administration position on the ACA’s section 1557. Background Under section 1557, health plans are prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age and disability. Under the ACA, the definition of sex was clarified to include discrimination on [...]
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently issued Revenue Procedure 2020-36 which indexes the contribution percentages for 2021 for purposes of determining affordability of an employer’s plan under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). For plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2021, employer-sponsored coverage will be considered affordable if the employee’s required contribution for self-only coverage does [...]
This article was published on March 25, 2020 BenefitsPro.com, written by Katie Kuehner-Hebert. Photo source BenefitsPro.com. Covered California's actuarial/policy brief recommends that Congress consider three actions now to mitigate impact. Congress needs to mitigate what could be substantial cost increases for both insurers and their members due to the COVID-19 pandemic, warns Covered California, the [...]
Recently released IRS notice 2019-50 has reestablished the health insurer tax (HIT) for 2020, which had been previously suspended for 2019. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) imposes an annual, non-deductible health insurer tax on insurance companies that offer fully-insured plans and applies to all insurers offering fully-insured coverage, including plans sold via the exchange or [...]
On July 23, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued Revenue Procedure 2019-29 which indexes the contribution percentages for 2020 for purposes of determining affordability of an employer’s plan under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). For plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2020, employer-sponsored coverage will be considered affordable if the employee’s required contribution for self-only [...]
On July 17, 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives voted across bipartisan lines to repeal the ACA’s Cadillac Tax. The final vote in the House was 419-6 in favor of repeal. The tax was designed as a penalty tax on high-value health coverage, to convince health plan sponsors to reduce benefits and keep costs down by [...]
Pre-Tax Transportation Fringe Benefits: On March 1, 2019, New Jersey becomes the first state to require employers to offer pre-tax transportation benefits to employees. A pre-tax transportation fringe benefit is a benefit that allows an employee to set aside wages on a pre-tax basis, which is then only made available to the employee for the [...]
The Internal Revenue Service released its 2020 Health Savings Account Inflation Adjustment Limits. A comparison of the 2019 and 2020 limits are listed below. The ACA maximum out-of-pocket limits have also been adjusted. The ACA uses a different adjustment calculation than the IRS when setting HSA limits year over year.
The Internal Revenue Service is finally issuing penalty letters to employers who failed to provide health coverage in compliance with the employer shared responsibility provisions of the ACA for the 2015 tax year. Some letters may describe a no coverage excise tax while others may assess an excise tax for failure to provide “adequate or [...]
The Internal Revenue Service released its 2019 Health Savings Account Inflation Adjustment Limits. A comparison of the 2018 and 2019 limits are listed below. The ACA maximum out-of-pocket limits have also been adjusted. The ACA uses a different adjustment calculation than the IRS when setting HSA limits year over year.
