Health Care Reform: Taxation and Accounting Issues

Understand the 'big picture' of the Affordable Care Act and its requirements on health plans and employers.

The ACA has now been in existence for over a decade. Despite a concerted effort by some in Washington to overturn it, it's now here to stay, for good or ill. Although the individual coverage mandate was repealed, all of the onerous requirements placed by the ACA on employers with 50 or more full-time employees are still in full force. Anyone working in the areas of human resources or benefits, including those who work for medium-size employers, should have a thorough understanding of the ACA's rules, especially the requirements of the so-called 'employer mandate.' We will cover the basic structure of the ACA and employer mandate in detail, providing a thorough grounding, or needed review, for HR and benefits professionals. We will also explain the recent Supreme Court that upheld the ACA against its latest, and perhaps last, constitutional challenge. We will also cover the three major Trump administration regulatory initiatives on short-term/limited duration insurance, association health plans, and Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRAs). In the case of ICHRAs, we will try to assess whether they have the potential to revolutionize employers' provision of health care to employees in the same way that 401(k) plans revolutionized the provision of retirement benefits. Finally, we will cover the recent and temporary expansions of ACA enrollment periods and subsidies that were included in the last round of federal coronavirus relief legislation, as well as the No Surprises Act that takes aim at surprise medical bills.