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Tag: employer mandate

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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Gibbs Predicts Employer Mandate Will Be Killed

A former longtime advisor to President Barack Obama predicted Wednesday that the employer mandate — a key piece of Obamacare — will not survive.

It was among several predictions Robert Gibbs, former White House press secretary, had for the future of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in a speech at the 2014 Benefits Selling Expo.

“I don’t think the employer mandate will go into effect. It’s a small part of the law. I think it will be one of the first things to go,” he said to a notably surprised audience.

The employer mandate has been delayed twice, he noted. The vast majority of employers with 100 or more employees offer health insurance, and there aren’t many employers who fall into the mandate window, he said.

Killing the employer mandate would be one way to improve the law — and there are a handful of other “common sense” improvements needed as well, he said.

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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Treasury Delays Employer Responsibility and Information Reporting Requirements Until 2015

The Treasury made an announcement in the “Treasury Notes” blog that it is delaying the implementation of the Code section 6055 and 6056 information reporting provisions until 2015.

This news was expected since no reporting guidance has been issued to date. Surprisingly, however, Treasury also announced its decision to delay the effective date for the employer shared responsibility liability itself until 2015.

The announcement states that Treasury recognizes that the Code section 4980H employer shared responsibility provisions could not be enforced without information reporting, and so Treasury is also delaying the application of the Code section 4980H employer shared responsibility provisions until 2015.

This is welcome news given the fact that the employer shared responsibility proposed regulations, which were published on January 2, 2013, leave several questions unanswered (see http://www.groom.com/resources-734.html). Formal guidance setting forth the details of this transition relief is expected shortly.

From Treasury Notes blog:  http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/Continuing-to-Implement-the-ACA-in-a-Careful-Thoughtful-Manner-.aspx