HHS announces ACA maximum out-of-pocket limit for 2022; allows for marketplace enrollment when COBRA subsidy ends
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced the inflation-adjusted maximum out-of-pocket (OOP) limits that will apply to non-grandfathered plans for plan years beginning in 2022. The OOP limit includes the plan’s deductible and cost sharing...
Say it isn’t so! Does FMLA apply when an asymptomatic employee tests positive for COVID-19 but cannot work from home?
In a pending Pennsylvania case (Payne v. Woods Services, Inc.), the trial court hints that the FMLA may apply in the case of an employee who is asymptomatic but tests positive for COVID-19 and is unable to telework. While the case survived a motion to dismiss, the...
“For every cloud, a silver lining.” San Francisco postpones HCSO reporting deadline
Amidst the pall of the pandemic, we celebrate little rays of sunshine. Here’s one: San Francisco has postponed its Health Care Security Ordinance (HCSO) annual reporting obligation for the 2020 calendar year from the end of this month to at least Oct. 31, 2021....
“You just missed the exit” (Where’s the guidance on ending the outbreak period?)
You’re driving along, your partner’s in the passenger seat playing navigator. You drive smoothly past an exit only to have said partner exclaim, “Hey! Where are you going! You missed our exit!” Your reply: “Well you’re in charge of directions! Give me a little heads...
ACA litigation merry-go-round: ‘Round and ’round we go…
The Department’s new position, in a case currently pending with the court, is that not only is the ACA’s individual mandate constitutional but that if the court concludes the mandate is not constitutional, it can and should be severed from the rest of the ACA so as to not to take the entire ACA down with it.
Department of Labor adjusts penalty amounts, summarizes 2020 enforcement actions
ERISA penalties adjusted for inflation The Department of Labor’s (DOL) enforcement wing, the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), recently released inflation-adjusted penalty amounts for various ERISA welfare benefit plan violations. Federal regulations...
Finally, some good news! California’s Franchise Tax Board delays individual mandate reporting and disclosure deadlines
Well, 2021 is off to a contentious start politically, and coronavirus infections are surging again, but we have good news from California! The state’s taxing authority, the Franchise Tax Board (FTB), has extended or effectively extended the deadlines in 2021 for...
Furloughs, layoffs, ACA measurement periods and next year’s medical plan eligibility: Chaos gives way to confusion
As if 2020 has not already wrought enough chaos, many employers are finding that their medical plan eligibility rules are about to add insult to their employees’ injuries triggered by furloughs, layoffs or reduced work hours in 2020. Those reduced hours in 2020 may...
Tri-agency rules expound on vaccine coverage mandate
Federal regulators have issued rules supplying the first interpretive gloss on the group health plan coverage mandate, imposed by Congressional legislation last spring, to provide coronavirus vaccines with no cost sharing. Consistent with the legislation, the new...
IRS gives employers more time to furnish 1095-Cs to employees, HHS extends national health emergency
The IRS has again (as it has in past years) extended the deadline to furnish Forms 1095-C to Affordable Care Act (ACA) full-time employees. The Service has moved the deadline to furnish the forms for 2020 from Jan. 31 to March 2, 2021. The deadlines for filing those...
How do you apply FMLA+ given new school year policies?
Updated Aug. 28, 2020 with additional DOL guidance released after original publication With the new school year upon us, parents are faced with new child care concerns due to the continued risk of COVID-19 transmission and varying approaches to that risk by different...
New FFCRA paid leave guidance for government contractors
Government contractors performing work on contracts governed by the Service Contract Act (SCA) or Davis-Bacon and Related Acts (DBRA) received some welcome news this week when the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (DOL-WHD) issued guidance exempting...
Proposed rules would allow some additional flexibility to ACA grandfathered plans
Federal regulators have proposed regulations to make it easier, for the dwindling number of employers still boasting grandfathered health plans, to retain grandfathered status.
Feeling good about your ACA reporting compliance? A federal audit might foreshadow a more intolerant IRS
The IRS has alarmed many employers over the last few years by sending 226-J letters assessing potential penalties for alleged violations of the employer mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). While in most cases the employers have been able to dodge those penalties by convincing the IRS that the employer had satisfied the mandate but had merely misreported that fact to the IRS, a Treasury Department audit reports wants the IRS to become less forgiving of those errors in the future.