ObamaCare LTO Expires December 15

You wouldn’t think such a thing as a limited time offer (LTO) would exist for a government program, but it does for health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act. According to the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) website, the standard minimum participation rate of 70% of your employees enrolled (11 States have a…

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House Votes to Repeal “Cadillac Tax”

As the old baseball saying goes, it’s hard to tell the players without a scorecard, but it seems equally challenging to tell whether or not the US House wants to keep any aspects of ObamaCare. On Wednesday of this week, the democratically-controlled U.S. House voted by an overwhelming bi-partisan tally of 419 – 6 to…

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ObamaCare, California-style

It may be effectively neutered at the federal level, but the California legislature just put the individual mandate back on the books when it passed SB 78, legislation that authorizes the taxing of California citizens who do not purchase health insurance and Governor Gavin Newsom signed it into law last Friday. The new law essentially…

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SHOP Portal Closes

It was born out of passage of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) back in 2010, but now the online enrollment and payment portal for the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP), is no more. Last Sunday, February 10, 2019, the enrollment and payment portal only, closed for good as SHOP coverage may now be…

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Court Struck Obamacare, But It’s Still Law

A word of caution . . . despite the fact that a federal district court in Texas ruled two weeks ago that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka, Obamacare) was unconstitutional, it remains the law of the land. President Trump’s signing of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) into law last December,…

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DOL Issues Association Health Plan Rule

The Department of Labor this week finally issued its rule authorizing the creation of association health plans (AHP) that can help small businesses and the self-employed to get more affordable health coverage. Under the new rule, which will become effective on September 1 2018, the definition of an employer under the Employee Retirement Income Security…

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“It’s Alive, It’s Alive!”

Yes, that phrase comes from the 1931 horror flick, Frankenstein, but it seems to fit health care mandates in New Jersey just as well now after Governor Phil Murphy this week signed a couple of health care bills into law. The first, S1877, creates a state-level individual mandate replicating the major provisions of the individual…

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New Jersey Resurrects the Individual Mandate

Despite most Americans being strongly opposed to the Obamacare individual healthcare mandate (and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law in December effectively neutered the requirement by removing the penalty for non-compliance), New Jersey is determined to put it back in place. The New Jersey Health Insurance Market Preservation Act was passed last…

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ACA Affordability is Moving Target

We were reminded by our friends at Sesco Management that the definition of affordable health care plans under the Affordable Care Act is inflation-adjusted and we’re thankful for the heads-up. Under Obamacare, employer-sponsored coverage for plan years beginning in 2018 is considered affordable if an employee’s required contribution for self-only coverage does not exceed 9.56%…

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Individual Mandate Gone, Employer Mandate Next?

When the Tax Cut and Jobs Act was signed into law by the President just before Christmas last month, the law eliminated the individual mandate created by the Affordable Care Act. With that done, it would appear that Republicans in Congress now want to repeal the other side of the two-headed mandate monster, the employer…

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