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ACA Affordability Standard for 2018 Released

July 26 - Posted at 1:05 PM Tagged: , , , , , ,
Since the inception of the employer mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2015, the affordability percentage for 2018 has been reduced and is now back to 9.56% per a recently released IRS publication.

Groups will need to carefully consider if a reduction in employee premium contributions is necessary in 2018 in order to ensure their medical coverage continues to meet affordability standards per ACA requirements.

Congress and the IRS were busy changing laws governing employee benefit plans and issuing new guidance under the ACA in late 2015. Some of the results of that year-end governmental activity include the following:


Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 (“PATH Act”)

The PATH Act, enacted by Congress and signed into law on December 18, 2015, made some the following changes to federal statutory laws governing employee benefit plans:

  • The ACA’s 40% excise tax (aka “Cadillac Tax”) on excess benefits under applicable employer sponsored coverage — so called “Cadillac Plans,” due to the perceived richness of such coverage — is  delayed from 2018 to 2020.


  • Formerly a nondeductible excise tax, any Cadillac Tax  paid by employers will now be deductible as a business expense.


  • Beginning with plan years after November 2, 2015,  employers with 200+ employees will not be required to automatically enroll new or current     employees in group health plan coverage, as originally required under the ACA.


  • After December 31, 2015, individual taxpayers who purchase private health insurance via the Healthcare Exchange will not be eligible to claim a Health Care Tax Credit on their tax returns.

IRS Notice 2015-87

On December 16, 2015, the IRS issued Notice 2015-87, providing guidance on employee accident and health plans and employer shared-responsibility obligations under the ACA. Guidance provided under Notice 2015-87 applies to plan years that begin after the Notice’s publication date (December 16th), but employers may rely upon the guidance provided by the Notice for periods prior to that date.


Notice 2015-87 covers a wide-range of topics from employer reporting obligations under the ACA to the application of Health Savings Account rules to rules for identifying individuals who are eligible for benefits under plans administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Following are some of the highlights from Notice 2015-87, with a focus on provisions that are most likely to impact non-governmental employers.


  • Under the ACA, an HRA may only reimburse medical expenses of those individuals (employee, spouse, and/or dependents) who are also covered by the employer’s group health plan providing minimum      essential coverage (“MEC”) that is integrated with the HRA.
  • Employer opt-out payments (i.e., wages paid to an employee solely for waiving employer-provided coverage) may, in the view of Treasury and the IRS, effectively raise the contribution cost for employees who desire to participate in a MEC plan. Treasury and the IRS intend to issue      regulations on these arrangements and the impact of the opt-out payment on the employee’s cost of coverage. Employers are put on notice that if an opt-out payment plan is adopted after December 16, 2015, the amount of the offered opt-out payment will likely be included in the employee’s cost of coverage for purposes of determining ACA affordability.
  • Treasury and the IRS will begin to adjust the affordability safe harbors to conform with the annual adjustments for inflation applicable to the “9.5% of household income” analysis under the ACA. For plan years beginning in 2015, employers may rely upon 9.56% for one or more of the affordability safe harbors identified in regulations under the ACA, and 9.66% for plan years beginning in 2016. For example, in a plan year beginning in 2016, an employer’s MEC plan will meet affordability standards if the employee’s contribution for lowest cost, self-only coverage does not exceed 9.66% of the employee’s W-2 wages (Box      1).
  • To determine which employees are “full-time” under the ACA, “hours of service” are intended to include those hours an employee works and is entitled to be paid, and those hours for which the employee is entitled to be paid but has not worked, such as sick leave, paid vacation, or periods of legally protected leaves of absence, such as FMLA  or USERRA leave.
  • The Treasury and IRS remind applicable large employers that they will provide relief from penalties for failing to properly complete and submit Forms 1094-C and 1095-C if the employers are able to show that they made good faith efforts to comply with their reporting obligations.

With Congress in its summer recess, now is a good time to reflect on the top ACA issues worth monitoring as 2015 quickly approaches.  Here are a handful of key issues to watch:

 

Dueling Court Cases on Federal Subsidies

 

One issue grabbing national headlines is the dueling decisions coming out of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (Halbig v. Burwell) and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (King v. Burwell) on missing language in the ACA that would have authorized the federal government to provide premium subsidies to individuals who sign up for health plans through the federal Exchanges. The legal issue in these court cases is whether the ACA premium tax credit (aka subsidy) is available to those individuals who enroll in qualified health plans (QHP) through state operated Exchanges or if it is available only to those to enroll in a QHP through a federally funded Exchange. 

 

A primary concern is that a significant number of people in about two-thirds of the states (who did not set up a state-run Exchange) rely on the subsidy to purchase a plan in the federal Exchange. Specifically, the ACA’s employer mandate penalty of $3000 is based upon an employer having an employee seek coverage through an Exchange and receive the federal premium subsidy. In general, the employer mandate requires that “applicable large employers” offer their full-time employees minimum essential coverage or potentially pay a tax penalty.  However, according to the statutory text of the ACA, the penalties under the employer mandate are triggered only if an employee receives a subsidy to purchase coverage through an Exchange established by the states. Both cases are being appealed to higher courts and will likely be consolidated into one case to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in the not so distant future.  

 

In an interesting development, a video surfaced last week featuring one of the ACA’s chief architects (John Gruber) saying that health insurance subsidies should only be available in those states who opt to build and implement state-based Exchanges to gain participation. The idea was to create an incentive to have states actively involved in the hosting of an Exchange, rather than relying on the federal government to operate the Exchanges in each state.  Whether this video will be used as evidence to uphold the argument that subsidies can only be offered by state-based Exchanges remains to be seen.   

 

Lack of Back End Software for Federal Exchange

 

Of course, one of the big news stories in 2013 and early 2014 was the substandard launch of the federal Exchange, which led to many Americans having to wait to be enrolled in an ACA-compliant health plan.  Although some technical snafus have been addressed, there are many that still remain.  For example, a top White House official recently told Congress that the automated system that is supposed to send premium payments to insurance companies is still under development, and they did not have a completion date for it yet. The lack of an electronic verification process is only one part of the “backend” software that is still problematic five years after PPACA was passed.

 

Future of Navigators in Comparison with the Value of Brokers 

 

Several recent studies have touted the benefits of using third parties, such as Brokers, to help consumers find coverage under the ACA. Some of these studies have focused on the usefulness of using Brokers/Agents over the benefits of using Navigators.  A recent Urban Institute study found that health insurance Brokers were the most helpful in providing health insurance Exchange information when compared to other types of resources, including Navigators and website content. However, there are other published studies showcasing how Navigators have been useful to consumers.  That being said, Brokers have assumed an integral role supporting millions of Americans in securing and maintaining coverage for many decades, and continue to be knowledgeable resources, as they are licensed in the states they operate in, whereas Navigators are not required to meet the same licensing standards as Brokers/Agents.  It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Navigators, who are not as experienced and who are, in the end, dependent upon federal grants to provide their services.  

 

Provider Access Issues & Emergency Room Over-Usage

 

A number of public policymakers have raised concerns recently about the fact that there are shortages of key physicians and other providers and as a result is causing a increase in non-emergent patient visits to expensive ER departments. A recent story in the New York Times highlighted similar concerns, saying the ACA cannot change the fact that visiting an emergency room may be easier than seeing a primary care physician in some instances or locations. Other stories and studies highlight how the ACA and health care reform initiatives can affect access to providers in many different ways, such as changing reimbursement levels, improving the availability of certain types of specialists, or re-educating the patient to move from visiting the ER department to either making an appointment ahead-of-time or visiting a less expensive Urgent Care center for care.

 

Premium Rate Increases

 

Another critical issue to monitor are premium increases that might be occurring in spite of the initial promises that the ACA would lower health care costs. Health plans have begun publishing proposed rates for 2015, resulting in a recent flurry of news articles and reports addressing the impact of the ACA on insurance premiums. 

 

The Wall Street Journal published a front page report discussing the ACA’s impact on premium increases earlier this summer, saying, “Hundreds of thousands of consumers nationwide, who bought insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act, will face a choice this fall: swallow higher premiums to stay in their plans or save money by switching.”  

 

The Journal goes on to say that a new picture is emerging in 10 states where 2015 premium insurance rates for individual plans have been filed, “In all but one (state), the largest health insurer is proposing to increase premiums between 8.5% to 22.8% next year.”  Ironically, smaller health plans are reducing their 2015 rates in the same market in an attempt to gain market share.  

 

The significance of this trend is underscored in a statement released earlier this summer by Karen Ignagni, president & CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), in which she expressed concerns about keeping health insurance affordable for patients. “Affordability remains a top priority for consumers when it comes to their health care,” she said.

 

Bonus:  Be Sure To Watch The Political Races

 

With the ACA’s continued challenges, the ups and downs of the U.S. economy, key world events in the Middle East, and other confounding variables, one has to wonder what will happen during the mid-year elections this fall. As reported by CNN and other news outlets, the ACA became an key issue in Obama’s 2012 re-election victory as well as Democrats picking up seats in the Senate and House in that election.  

 

As November 3, 2015 approaches, many different messages could be sent back to the White House and Congress. If Republicans take over the Senate and retain control of the House, how will this impact the ACA over the next several years?  If the congressional houses remain split, we may have less going on by either political party. How will the state-level elections impact the ACA and state-run Exchanges? Only time will tell.

Starting in 2015, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires applicable large employers to offer affordable, minimum value health coverage to their full time employees (and dependents) or pay a penalty. The employer penalty rules are also known as the employer mandate or the “pay or play” rules.

 

Effective in 2014, affordability of health coverage is used to determine whether an individual is:

 

    • Eligible for a premium tax credit for a health plan purchased through an Exchange; and
    • Exempt from the penalty for not having minimum essential coverage

 

On July 24, 2014, the IRS released Revenue Procedure 2014-37 to index the ACA’s affordability percentages for 2015.

 

For plan years beginning in 2015, an applicable large employer’s health coverage will be considered affordable under the pay or play rules if the employee’s requires contribution to the plan does not exceed 9.56 percent of the employee’s household income for the year. The current affordability percentage for 2014 is 9.5 percent.

 

Applicable large employers can use one of the IRS’ affordability safe harbors to determine whether their health plans will satisfy the 9.56 percent requirement for 2015 plan years, if requirements for the applicable safe harbor are met.

 

This adjusted affordability percentage will also be used to determine whether an individual is eligible for a premium tax credit for 2015. Individuals who are eligible for employer-sponsored coverage that is affordable and provides minimum value are not eligible for a premium tax credit in the Exchange.

 

Also, Revenue Procedure 2014-37 adjusts the affordability percentage for the exemption from the individual mandate for individuals who lack access to affordable minimum essential coverage. For plan years beginning in 2015, coverage is unaffordable for purposes of the individual mandate if it exceeds 8.05 percent of household income.

 

Employer Mandate

The pay or play rules apply only to applicable large employers. An “applicable large employer” is an employer with, on average, at least 50 full-time employees (including full-time equivalents) during the preceding calendar year. Many applicable large employers will be subject to the pay or play rules starting in 2015. However, applicable large employers with fewer than 100 full-time employees may qualify for an additional year, until 2016, to comply with the employer mandate.

 

Affordability Determination

The affordability of health coverage is a key point in determining whether an applicable large employers will be subject to a penalty.

 

For 2014, the ACA provides that an employer’s health coverage is considered affordable if the employee’s required contribution to the plan does not exceed 9.5 percent of the employee’s household income for the taxable year. The ACA provides that, for plan year beginning after 2014, the IRS must adjust the affordability percentage to reflect the excess of the rate of premium growth over the rate of income growth for the preceding calendar year.

 

As noted above, the IRS has adjusted the affordability percentage for plan years beginning in 2015 to 9.56 percent. The affordability text applies only to the portion of the annual premiums for self-only coverage and does not include any additional cost for family coverage. Also, if an employer offers multiple health coverage options, the affordability test applies to the lowest-cost option that also satisfies the minimum value requirement.

 

Affordability Safe Harbors

Because an employer generally will not know an employee’s household income, the IRS created three affordability safe harbors that employers may use to determine affordability based on information that is available to them.

 

The affordability safe  harbors are all optional. An employer may choose to use one or more of the affordability safe harbors for all its employees or for any reasonable category of employees, provided it does so on a uniform and consistent basis for all employees in a category.

 

The affordability safe harbors are:

 

  • Form W-2 safe harbor (affordability determined based on Form W-2 wages from that employer)
  • The rate of pay safe harbor (affordability determined based on an employee’s rate of pay)
  • The federal poverty line (FPL) safe harbor (affordability determined based on FPL for a single individual)

 

Individual Mandate

Beginning in 2014, the ACA requires most individuals to obtain acceptable health insurance coverage for themselves and their family members or pay a penalty. This rule is often referred to as the “individual mandate”. Individual may be eligible for an exemption from the penalty in certain circumstances.

 

Under the ACA, individuals who lack access to affordable minimum essential coverage are exempt from the individual mandate. For purposes of this exemption, coverage is considered affordable for an employee in 2014 if the required contribution for the lowest-cost, self-only coverage  does not exceed 8 percent of household income. For family members, coverage is considered affordable in 2014 if the required contribution for the lowest-cost family coverage does not exceed 8 percent of household income. This percentage will be adjusted annually after 2014.

 

For plan years beginning in 2015, the IRS has increased this percentage from 8 percent to 8.05 percent.

 

Obamacare Mandate for Medium Sized Employers Delayed Until 2016

February 11 - Posted at 2:48 PM Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Obama administration is giving certain employers extra time before they must offer health insurance to almost all of their full time workers.


Under new rules announced Monday by Treasury Department officials, employers with 50 to 99 workers will be given until 2016 (two years longer than originally envisioned under the Affordable Care Act) before they risk a federal penalty for not complying.


Companies with 100+ workers or more are getting a different kind of one-year grace period. Instead of being required in 2015 to offer coverage to 95% of full time workers, these bigger employers can now avoid a fine by offering insurance to at least 70% of workers next year.


Administration officials had already announced in July 2013 that the employer requirements would be postponed until 2015 and this recent announcement has caught officials by surprise.

Obama administration officials said the Treasury Department decided to allow medium-size businesses more latitude because “they need a little more time to adjust to providing coverage”.


The Affordable Care Act (ACA) states that anyone who works 30 hours or more is a full time employee, and it compels many employers to offer affordable insurance to those workers and their dependents. (Please note that Florida law currently defines a full time worker as anyone who works 25 or more hours). It also defines affordable as premiums of no more than 9.5% of an employee’s income, and employers must pay for the equivalent of 60% of the actuarial value of a worker’s coverage. Businesses that fail to do so will eventually face a fine of up to $2000 for each employee not offered coverage, though workers are not required to sign up for the benefits.


For questions on how these recent changes will affect your business or for help complying with the ever-changing ACA requirements, please contact our office.

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