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Tag: Affordable Healthcare Act

Bosses Face Affordable Care Act Deadline

 

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The clock is ticking for Tommy Cain and thousands of other U.S. employers facing deadlines to make changes to the health insurance they offer their employees under the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. Cain has already met one of the law’s key requirements: offer health insurance to at least 70% of full-time staffers by 2015, or face penalties.

Back in January, he put a no-frills plan in place for his 250 employees. His Gulf Coast grocery chain offers to pay 60% of premiums costs, deducting $25 weekly from the paychecks of those who opt for the coverage.

But his dilemma now is figuring out whether that plan is affordable to those employees, as required under the law. The cost cannot exceed more than 9.5% of employees’ annual salaries, the law says.

With just three months to go before 2015, Mr. Cain is worried that he will be penalized next year if the plan doesn’t meet the technical standard.

Read the full article here.

Contact Steven G. Cosby, MHSA with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.

There’s Finally Someone in Charge of HealthCare.gov

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About two months ago, the federal agency overseeing Obamacare said it would name its first-ever chief executive for HealthCare.gov, an acknowledgement that the enrollment Web site didn’t have a true leader before its faulty launch last fall. On Tuesday, the Obama administration announced that new role will be filled by Kevin Counihan, the chief executive of Connecticut’s health insurance exchange, which is thought to be one of the best state-run insurance marketplaces in the country.

The idea of a single point person to oversee the law’s implementation originally generated interest among some of the law’s advocates in early 2010 and top administration officials. More talk resurfaced after the failed launch of HealthCare.gov last year, when it became clear there was a management problem at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency overseeing the law’s implementation.

Read the full report here.

Contact Steven Cosby with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.

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Ways & Means Subcommittee Hearing Highlights GAO Report on Lack of Subsidy Enrollment Controls

On Wednesday, July 23, the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight held a hearing about the integrity of the health reform law’s premium tax credit. The hearing’s sole witness was Seto Bagdoyan, the acting director of audit services, forensic audits and investigative service for the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO). Bagdoyan reported for the first time on the preliminary results of an ongoing federal investigation of the controls being used by the federal health insurance exchange when deeming individuals eligible for federal premium tax credit subsidies. The GAO’s investigators found that so far in 11 of 12 attempts made in several different states, undercover agents were able to enroll in subsidized insurance coverage using entirely fake applications. Bagdoyan stressed that the investigation results were preliminary and an ongoing investigation’s initial results shouldn’t be taken out of context. However, he also noted that the findings to-date raise “a number of questions that are fundamental about the effectiveness of controls.”

Read the full article here.

Contact Steven Cosby with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.

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After Exchanges Close, 5% of Americans Are Newly Insured: More Than Half of Newly Insured in ’14 Got Insurance Through Exchanges

Five percent of Americans report being newly insured in 2014. More than half of that group, or 2.8% of the total U.S. population, say they got their new insurance through the health exchanges that were open through mid-April.

These data are based on Gallup Daily tracking interviews with more than 31,000 adults conducted between April 15 and June 17. Those who say they have health insurance were asked if their policy was new for 2014, and if so, whether they obtained their policy through a state or federal health exchange or in some other way. The exchanges officially closed on March 31, although people who indicated they had begun the process prior to that date were allowed to continue to enroll through April 15.

The preliminary April 16 Gallup update on the newly insured was based on data collected from March 4-April 14, and showed that 4% of all adults on average during that period reported being newly insured, with 2.1% reporting that they gained their insurance through an exchange.

Read full article here.

Contact Steven Cosby with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.

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Obamacare’s Employer Mandate is Under Attack From Both Sides. Will it Survive?

Critics of the health care law, including many business owners, have long bemoaned a provision that requires employers to provide health coverage to their workers.
Now, some of the law’s supporters are starting to call for the rule’s elimination, too.
“Repeal of the employer mandate might, in fact, not be such a bad idea,” Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University and vocal supporter of the Affordable Care Act, wrote this week in a column for Health Affairs. In simplest terms, the employer mandate, as it has become known, requires firms with at least 50 workers to offer affordable, comprehensive health insurance to every full-time worker. If they don’t, they face fines of up to $2,000 per employee.

Read full article here.

Contact Steven Cosby with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.
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