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Health insurers are asking Congress to shift more power to states to improve insurance oversight, tighten eligibility for ACA plans and other changes.
The National Governors Association sent a letter to House Republicans saying its critical that Congress not shift costs onto states, particularly with Medicaid spending.
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 TBR News:
Fast & Furious Healthcare Update
February 2017

 


The Trump White House is signing executive orders left and right, although many may not hold up under scrutiny from Congress or the court system. One reason is that they are being written completely by close advisors without consultation from key lawmakers or agencies that would need to implement these orders.
 
Coming from the private sector, President Trump is used to having things happen quickly. Leaders in Congress have been sounding the alarm on the way Congress works, but Trump said that this would be the busiest Congress in history during the Republican Party retreat in Philadelphia earlier this week.
 
If the first week is a harbinger of things to come...buckle up!
The Executive Order
President Trump is "Minimizing the Economic Burden of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Pending Repeal". In addition, the memorandum effectively freezes all new and pending regulations from taking effect. The memo requests that no regulations be sent to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) until an agency head is appointed by the president to approve and review regulations. It further instructs that any regulations that had been sent to the OFR but not yet published in the Federal Register be immediately withdrawn and any regulations that were published but not yet effective be postponed for 60 days for the purpose of reviewing questions of fact, law and policy.
What Can You Expect?
Rules that were issued prior to June 2016 can only be overturned through the traditional notice and comment process. Given that the process can take months for each regulation revision, Republicans are more likely to overhaul much of the ACA through their legislative repeal rather than rulemaking process.
Depending on how regulators carry out the EO, there could be either greater stability or instability in the marketplaces.
 
...more to come.
How Else Can Changes Be Made
The Trump Administration has not yet indicated which provisions of the ACA they intend to alter through the regulatory process, although they have made statements suggesting possible changes to the individual and employer mandates, which relied heavily on regulations to be implemented.
IRS Seeks Out Non-Filing ALEs
Some employers are receiving requests from the IRS asking where their 1094/1095 reports are. The letter requires a response from the employer within 30 days from the date of the letter.

Employers are directed to check one of the following indicating their status for 2015:
  • An assertion that filing has already occurred
  • Acknowledgement that the employer is an ALE and that the forms are included along with the response to the IRS letter
  • Acknowledgement that the employer is an ALE and the date that the employer will file the required forms
  • An assertion that the employer was not an ALE for calendar year 2015
Employers should take this enforcement effort as a gentle nudge to comply with the upcoming filing deadlines for the 2016 returns. Reports are due to be filed with the IRS:
      • February 28, 2017 for paper forms
      • March 31, 2017 for electronic filing

The above information are excerpts from the NAHU updates and newsletters.

 

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This update is a publication of TBR Associates, designed to highlight employee benefit matters of interest to our readers.  The information contained in this publication is meant for general educational purposes only.