Healthcare reform

In February, the Health and Human Services Department issued proposed regulations addressing the impact of health care reform on student health insurance coverage. The proposed regulations classify student health insurance coverage as a type of "individual health insurance coverage."

As employers start to conduct cost-benefit analysis on providing health insurance under the health law, they should also study some proposals by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

The Obama administration’s already tortured logic regarding the Constitution’s Commerce Clause and PPACA’s individual mandate has been dealt several body blows so far.

Experience with the health insurance exchanges in Massachusetts and Utah suggest these reform mechanisms will retain a strong need for brokers to provide buyers with market education and guidance.

The Employers Council on Flexible Compensation (ECFC) is fighting to repeal parts of the health care reform law that establish annual caps for flexible spending arrangements and require a prescription for over-the-counter medications to be reimbursed under FSAs. It also is pushing for a change to allow for a cash-out at the end of the year in place of the use-it-or-lose-it system that dates back to the 1980s.

The U.S. Supreme Court took no action Monday on a request to speed up a ruling on President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will develop the Health Insurance Assistance Database, a new system of records, as part of a program to oversee states' development and operation of health insurance exchanges.

President Obama signed legislation Thursday, April 14 repealing the expanded 1099 reporting requirements in the health care reform law and Small Business Jobs Act.

The American Academy of Actuaries has recommended a number of policy options to strengthen and improve the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate clause, regardless of whether the landmark law’s controversial centerpiece is legally removed over time.

Budget negotiators bypassed GOP-erected roadblocks to health care reform in the deal cut Friday to avoid a government shutdown.

A new report from the Urban Institute examines reasons for two or more states to consider combining resources to create a multi-state health insurance exchange under the health care reform law.

The U.S. Senate passed a bill April 5 that would repeal PPACA’s 1099 tax reporting requirement.

A U.S. court will hear oral arguments on June 8 in a government appeal of a federal judge's ruling that struck down President Barack Obama's landmark health care overhaul law as unconstitutional.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a proposed rule March 31 that establishes the Medicare Shared Savings Program authorized in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

HighRoads, a Boston-based compliance and benefits management firm, conducted a survey months after approval of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, finding that, in general, employers believed that outsourcing costs for health benefits administration will increase because of the law.

Among the many provisions of health care reform legislation is a mandate to cover all preventive services at 100%. Although this provision does not go into effect for grandfathered plans until 2014, it already is in effect for nongrandfathered plans.

As you start your day as a busy benefits professional, you turn on the morning news, and you hear that the Department of Health and Human Services has changed the Form W-2 health insurance reporting requirement effective date from 2011 to 2012.

In this post-health care reform environment, benefit advisers - and their employer clients - face a new world order. For instance, with new restrictions on capping lifetime maximum benefits, the burden of managing the potential financial risk posed by even one employee's catastrophic illness looms large.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued interim guidance to employers on the informational reporting requirements on each employee's annual Form W-2 of the cost of the health insurance coverage they sponsor for employees.

When President Barack Obama signed his health care overhaul into law a year ago, some U.S. companies were quick to flag -- and write down -- the millions of dollars they stood to lose as a result of one aspect of the measure.