Have you been waiting months to hear how “affordable” plans are going to be under the Affordable Care Act? Or, do you call it Obamacare, and you’ve been waiting to see how much the costs will be driven up? Well, last night HHS (the US Department of Health and Human Services) finally let some data […]
Read More...If you want to see 10 pages of health reform in a 1 page timeline (well, 1 page for Employers and 1 page for Employees) then please visit our website (www.apbenefitadvisors.com/news). But, if you are looking for details specific to just a certain year or plan, then you can’t do better than this implementation timeline […]
Read More...On Sept. 5, 2013, the IRS released two long-awaited proposed rules governing health care coverage information reporting requirements. These requirements were originally supposed to apply to coverage in 2014 but the IRS has decided to delay these reporting requirements until 2015, in conjunction with the employer mandate delay. [Read prior news about the delay here]. […]
Read More...Listed below you will see the website addresses for the Federal Exchange (now called the Marketplace) as well as each State’s Marketplace. If your state is not listed please use the Federal Marketplace (link) and you’ll receive information about the Federal Exchange/Marketplace. US/Federal http://www.healthcare.gov/ California http://www.coveredca.com/ Colorado http://www.connectforhealthco.com/ Connecticut http://www.accesshealthct.com/ District […]
Read More...On August 27, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued a final rule for the individual mandate provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). As a reminder, the individual mandate requires most individuals to have minimum essential coverage (MEC) in 2014 or pay a penalty. The penalty is called a shared responsibility payment. […]
Read More...Head over to Google and enter “NY Times limit consumer costs delayed health care law”, then hit search. You’ll see articles from the NY Times, the Boston Globe, Huffington Post, etc. Even GOP.com is getting in on the action with their post, “Past is Prologue: Another Broken Promise and ObamaCare Delay”. Good luck getting the […]
Read More...The Employer Mandate portion of PPACA (“The Affordable Care Act”, aka Obamacare) has been pushed back to 2015. The law’s Individual Mandate has not been pushed back, and neither have PPACA’s taxes and fees. The White House, on the evening of July 2, in a blog posting from Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to the President, […]
Read More...For a background on the subject of HIPAA Wellness programs and how PPACA modified their offerings, please see our November 20, 2012 article called “DOL Wellness Program Guidance under PPACA” Recently, HHS, DOL and the IRS (Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the Treasury) issued final rules on employment-based wellness programs. The final […]
Read More...The month of April saw two more sets of PPACA-related FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) from the Department of Labor. Part 14 / Part XIV This part deals with the new SBC requirements. As we look to the 2nd year of applicability (that is for plans beginning on or after January 1, 2014 and before January […]
Read More...Last evening the US Department of Labor (“DOL”) released guidance regarding the notice you must provide to employees about the state exchanges (now being called “marketplaces”). You may recall from our Healthcare Reform timelines (2013, letter “f”) that employers were scheduled to begin distributing these notices in March of 2013, but the DOL delayed the […]
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