[MyOEBB] OEBB -- Health Care Reform Update -- IRS issues regulations!!!

[MyOEBB system updates]

Dear Superintendents, Business Managers and Benefit Representatives:

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued final regulations<http://op.bna.com/pen.nsf/id/pkun-9g7t6d/$File/2014-03082_PI.pdf> implementing the employer shared responsibility provisions (a.k.a., play-or-pay mandate) under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) today. Below are highlights of some of the final regulations you should be aware of.

The employer responsibility provision (i.e., employer is subject to penalties if it doesn't provide access to medical plans that provide minimum essential coverage):

*         Applies only to employers with 100 or more full-time equivalent employees in 2015

*         Applies to employers with 50 to 99 full-time equivalent employees in 2016

*         Only requires that employers that have 100 or more full-time equivalent employees offer coverage to 70 percent of their full-time employees in 2015

Prior guidance was that the employer responsibility provision applied to all employers with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees in 2015.  Prior guidance also suggested that qualified coverage must be made available to at least 95 percent of the employer's full-time employees (those working 30 or more hours per week), that threshold has been lowered to 70 percent for 2015.

The new guidance also addressed the effective date for the provisions.  The requirements for employers with 100 or more full-time equivalent employees will not go into effect until the start of the OEBB plan year, or October 1, 2015.  It is unknown whether the penalties for employers with 50 to 99 full-time equivalent employees will go into effective January 1, 2016, or October 1, 2016.

Also, there were some clarifications on how educational employees and adjunct faculty should be handled during the measurement process.  Towers Watson is working to prepare a special Bulletin on whether those clarifications change anything provided in previous Bulletins or informational webinars and presentations.

Hopefully this is helpful.  It will mean that fewer of you will need to worry about compliance starting in October 1, 2015, and those who still need to be ready by then will be less likely to be below the threshold due to your use of substitutes and temporary (traditionally non-benefit eligible) employees during that first year.



Denise L. Hall
Deputy Administrator
Oregon Educators Benefit Board
1225 Ferry Street SE
Salem, OR  97301-4281
(503) 378-5133
(503) 378-5832 FAX

*****CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE*****

This e-mail may contain information that is privileged, confidential, or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the addressee or it appears from the context or otherwise that you have received this e-mail in error, please advise me immediately by reply e-mail, keep the contents confidential, and immediately delete the message and any attachments from your system.

************************************


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/myoebb/attachments/20140211/041c342e/attachment.html>