Human Capital Management Blog

Applying yesterday’s health plan strategy to today’s market can produce some rotten emotions around renewal season. If you find yourself or your staff murmuring one or more of the following, you might be ripe for considering a new health plan strategy.

Dropping a quick update to clarify some recent confusion regarding the state of Affordable Care Act (ACA) Employer and Individual Mandate penalties.

The House of Representatives passed the American Health Care Act (AHCA) on May 4. So what? Taking a “we’ll make some changes, then the Senate makes some changes” approach to repealing and replacing Obamacare, the Senate assures that the bill is far from earning the simple majority required to pass in the Senate and land on President Trump’s desk. To the contrary, many in the Senate called the bill “dead on arrival.” What are employers to take away from it all? We are a far cry from repeal and replace. For at least another year we can expect the Employer Shared Responsibility Mandate to remain intact, to include annual 1095-C reporting for employees and the IRS.

At the Capital Region Human Resource Associations 2017 One-Day Conference, nationally recognized labor attorney, John Bagyi, Esq., provided a brief overview of the draft NY Paid Family Leave regulations released last February, and discussed how the regulation will interact with FMLA. Always amazes me how Mr. Bagyi can take the dryest of regulatory topics, pepper them with story, and make them sticky for the audience.  In this brief blog, I've pulled some tables and notes from his March 23rd presentation for readers to have a quick-fact sheet on what to expect for NY Paid Family Leave come next January. Of note, the NY Workers' Compensation Board will be receiving comments on the draft regulation through April 7, 2017. Final regualtions are anticipated this June, as participating insurance companies will need ample time to finalize new products to bring to market. 

Yes, it’s true, the House Ways and Means Committee has released their portion of the Affordable Care Act “repeal and replace” bill. Already, this is generating a lot of churn and discussion in the media regarding individual and employer mandate reporting requirements for 2017. This is where we advise everyone to pause, and take a breath.

With less than 3 weeks between today and Inauguration Day, there is a lot of speculation about the future of the Affordable Care Act. In this blog we’ll be reviewing the likely tactic of Budget Reconciliation that Congress will use to rapidly repeal the ACA, and discuss which provisions can and cannot be impacted by this tactic.

On December 13, 2016, the 21st Century Cures Act was signed into law, allowing for small group employers not offering employer-sponsored health plans to offer stand-alone Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs). The change is significant, given that most stand-alone HRAs have been prohibited by the Affordable Care Act since 2014. This new type of HRA, called a “qualified small employer HRA,” is effective for plan years starting on or after January 1, 2017. So, what’s this mean? Employers that currently do not sponsor a health plan may consider implementing a qualified small employer HRA in order to help employees pay individual insurance premiums or qualified medical expenses.

With much buzz in the media surrounding the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) amidst a Trump-administration, I’d like to focus on a few points to help us better frame a realistic discussion about the future of the ACA and American healthcare. Beyond the millions of Americans reliant upon government subsidies for affordable healthcare, there is also roughly 20% of America’s gross domestic product, according to a recent report, that is fueled by stakeholders in the insurance or healthcare industry. In other words, there are a lot of lobbyists that will be weighing in on discussions surrounding the future of American healthcare. So what do we know?