The state of Massachusetts officially repealed the employer pay-or-play regulations that were part of its landmark 2006 health care reform law. Similar to the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act, the state statute required employers of a certain size to either offer health care coverage to their employees or pay a fine.
The official repeal of the regulations this week is a formality since Massachusetts lawmakers repealed the employer mandate portion of the states health law last summer.
Very few employers were getting hit by this fee. I think we had about 96% of our state covered under some form of insurance so it wasnt a huge revenue raiser for the government. It wasnt doing much to add to employers offering benefits because in large part they already did, says Stacy Barrow, an associate with law firm Proskauer in Boston. One of the stated reasons for the appeal was the success of Massachusetts health reform in getting folks covered.
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The repeal of Massachusetts employer mandate has little implications for the broader ACA. Now that theres an employer mandate at the national level or at least there will be in the next year or two theres less of a need for us to have it in Massachusetts, says Barrow.
