Federal contractors take note – The nationwide ban on the COVID-19 vaccine mandate is modified
Nearly nine months ago in December 2021, a district court’s nationwide injunction of the federal contractor vaccine mandate relieved covered contractor employers of the requirement to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine. At that time, the Biden administration completely...
Changes afoot for ACA marketplace subsidies for family members, and for employer pricing strategies
The Biden administration has proposed regulations under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to make more employees’ family members eligible for subsidized coverage through ACA marketplaces, or insurance exchanges. The move will not affect employers’ obligations under the...
Department of Labor increases ERISA penalties, provides insight into 2021 enforcement activity
ERISA penalties adjusted for inflation The Department of Labor’s (DOL) enforcement wing, the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), recently made inflation adjustments to penalty amounts for various ERISA welfare benefit plan violations. Federal regulations...
What state legislatures don’t understand about health savings accounts – Oklahoma is the latest to pass legislation inadvertently barring HSA contributions
When I was a boy, my dad used to tell me, “If you don’t know what you’re doing, just ask. Better to ask, son, than to have to come back later to fix something you messed up.” It’s a mantra that state legislators should take to heart. Oklahoma is the latest state to...
The OSHA ETS as we know it is over
On Jan. 25, 2022, OSHA withdrew the Nov. 5, 2021, Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) which was in a state of flux from the time it was published until the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the nationwide stay earlier this month. While employers were left wondering what...
Feds reiterate ACA preventive care requirements, scold some plans…
Federal regulators recently called healthcare plan sponsors’ attention to new preventive care requirements, and indicated as well the regulators’ growing impatience with the failure by many plans to adequately comply with certain long-standing preventive care...
The Fifth Circuit vacates, in part, the nationwide stay of the CMS vaccine mandate leaving the majority of states subject to compliance
Just when employers began to breathe a sigh of relief, the vaccine mandate implemented by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is revived in 26 states. On Dec. 15, the Fifth Circuit concluded that the Louisiana district court which granted the...
Employers can breathe a sigh of relief as all three federal vaccine mandates are now on hold across the nation
Today, a federal district court in Georgia stayed the federal contractor vaccine mandate nationwide expanding on the three-state stay entered in Kentucky last week. Acknowledging that COVID-19 vaccines are effective and the fact that the pandemic has taken a tragic...
Ongoing legal challenges to all three federal vaccine mandates require employers to press the “pause” button
There’s been a flurry of activity in federal courts the past few weeks regarding the various federal vaccine mandates with new developments arising daily. States are increasing efforts to block mandates or expand exemptions for employees. Read below for a discussion...
Feds confirm vaccine wellness programs are ok, and that employers may ask about vaccination status
Federal authorities, in two new announcements, have validated employers’ use of healthcare plan-related wellness programs to incent employees to obtain a COVID-19 vaccine and confirmed that the HIPAA privacy rules do not prevent employers from asking employees or...
Feds to require reporting of air ambulance claim data, tip their hand on impending broker compensation rules
The federal Departments of Health & Human Services (HHS), Labor, and Treasury issued a second round of proposed rules late last week which, when finalized, will solicit utilization and cost data from health insurance carriers, group health plans and air ambulance...
San Francisco ups HCSO rates, clarifies (sort of) coverage of teleworkers
San Francisco has announced an increase in required health care expenditures for 2022 under its Health Care Security Ordinance (HCSO). San Francisco also amended the ordinance to address its applicability to employees who typically work in the city but, due to public...
PCORI deadline just passed – “What happens if I messed up?”
We all celebrated the end of the PCORI fee [1] only to have it sneak back in under the cover of the elimination of the Cadillac tax (and some other fees on health plans) in 2019. The PCORI fee filing and payment deadline recently passed, but if you missed it or made a...
Smaller employers beware: IRS doesn’t want paper ACA filings next year (or paper W-2 and similar filings, for that matter)
Start lining up a payroll and/or ACA reporting vendor now The IRS has proposed two significant changes to electronic filing requirements for various information returns including not just the Forms 1094-C and 1095-C filings required of many employers by the Affordable...