Healthcare reform

Understanding these ACA compliance requirements and the tools necessary to track the required data can be confusing and overwhelming.

As employers search for ways to trim health care costs, advisers are increasingly exploring the use of data to steer plan design.

Commentary: Waiting for the results of the 2016 presidential election before doing any Cadillac tax planning is not a good benefits strategy.

Commentary: Columnist Nelson Griswold discusses why sophisticated employee benefit advisers are increasingly discussing self-funding of the health plan with mid-size employers.

Commentary: The ACA’s Cadillac tax is like a patient, powerful hurricane moving across the Atlantic. If it makes landfall, the impact will be dramatic.

Aetna’s purchase of Humana confirms analyst predictions of continued consolidation as carriers vie for market share, a trend industry experts fear will limit choice and force brokers to reinvent their business approach.

Commentary: Questions plan sponsors should be asking of their insurance carrier, payroll vendor and benefits technology provider in advance of the ACA’s information reporting requirements.

Although the Supreme Court upheld subsidies on the exchanges, there remain key aspects of the ACA that broker and employer lobbyist organizations continue to seek to amend and/or repeal.

Commentary: With the Supreme Court decision behind us, there are a series of critical concerns employers and their advisers must focus on now.

Commentary: The next case to watch, launched by Speaker John Boehner last November, could once again put public exchange assistance in jeopardy.

Eliminating subsidies ‘would destabilize the individual insurance market in any state with a federal exchange,’ Chief Roberts says.

Today, in a 6-3 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court ruled in King v. Burwell that subsidies used to purchase health insurance in the 36 states on the federally facilitated marketplace are legal, thus avoiding the “death spiral” so often referred to by Congress. What does this ruling mean for employers?

The time of “what-ifs” for employers ended Thursday as the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling upholding the challenge to state subsidies in King v. Burwell, and employers should maintain business as usual going forward, according to most industry observers.

The Supreme Court’s highly anticipated decision in King v. Burwell to uphold subsidies on the federal exchange removes uncertainty and shifts the focus of advisers and their clients back to ACA compliance.

Commentary: The ACA is “unremovable,” says columnist Nelson Griswold, so advisers must learn how to leverage it.

Commentary: Chances of the industry ever being the way it was prior to the ACA are nonexistent, which we should all hail as a good thing, says columnist Wendy Keneipp following the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold ACA subsidies.

A 6-3 decision in favor of the HHS secretary in King v. Burwell means tax credits can continue to be used to purchase health coverage in states using the federal exchange.

The Senate yesterday revived its effort to separate broker commissions from a medical loss ratio formula created by the Affordable Care Act.

Brokers and agents welcome legislation introduced Tuesday to the Senate that would enhance broker access to information about marketplace enrollment, leveling the playing field with navigators and assisters.

Commentary: The vast majority of employers are not prepared to meet — and some remain simply unaware of — the employer mandate’s complex reporting obligations.