On June 24, 2019, President Trump issued an Executive Order intending to develop price and quality transparency initiatives to ensure that healthcare patients can make well-informed decisions about their care. This is part of the consumer-driven healthcare initiative, which has been a focus of government and patient groups alike to have more transparency regarding the cost of services from hospitals and other healthcare providers, as well as expanding the ability to use certain pre-tax health spending arrangements. The goal is to help consumers to make better informed decisions regarding their healthcare. It is also intended to address so-called “surprise billing,” which can expose patients to unexpected medical bills. The Executive Order directs federal agencies to promulgate regulations and issue guidance to meet these objectives.

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In Rev. Proc. 2019-25, the IRS released the inflation adjusted amounts for 2020 relevant to HSAs and high deductible health plans (HDHPs).

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On Friday, a district court judge in Texas found the ACA to be unconstitutional after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s changes to the ACA’s individual mandate penalty. The ACA remains in effect pending appeal of the judge’s decision, and employers are advised to continue to abide by the ACA’s employer mandate and reporting requirements.

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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has extended the deadline for furnishing 2018 Forms 1095-B and 1095-C to individuals from January 31, 2019 to March 4, 2019, as well as extended penalty relief for good-faith reporting errors. The due date for filing the forms with the IRS was not extended and remains February 28, 2019 (April 1, 2019 if filed electronically).

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On November 15, 2018, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced an increase to the health Flexible Spending Account (FSA) salary reduction contribution limit of $50 to $2,700 for plan years beginning in 2019 along with other cost-of-living adjustments that apply to dollar limitations in certain sections of the Internal Revenue Code. This Legal Alert summarizes the adjustments relevant to individuals and employer sponsors of welfare and fringe benefit plans.

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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) has provided guidance on the Affordable Care Act’s (“ACA’s”) medical loss ratio (“MLR”) rule, which requires health insurers to spend a certain percentage of premium dollars on claims or activities that improve health care quality or provide a rebate to policyholders. HHS has released amended and final regulations (the “Regulations”), which govern the distribution of rebates by issuers in group markets. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued Technical Release 2011-04 (“TR 2011-04″), which clarifies how rebates will be treated under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”).

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The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has issued a final rule expanding the opportunity of unrelated employers of all sizes (but particularly small employers) to offer employment-based health insurance through Association Health Plans (AHPs). Significantly, the final rule applies“large group” coverage rules under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to qualifying AHPs.

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In Rev. Proc. 2018-34, the IRS released the inflation adjusted amounts for 2019 relevant to determining whether employer-sponsored coverage is “affordable” for purposes of the Affordable Care Act’s (“ACA’s”) employer shared responsibility provisions and premium tax credit program. As shown in the table below, for plan years beginning in 2019, the affordability percentage is 9.86% of an employee’s household income or applicable safe harbor.

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The IRS has released the inflation adjusted amounts for 2019 relevant to health savings accounts (HSAs) and high deductible health plans (HDHPs). Notably, the 2019 Self-Only HSA contribution limit is increasing to $3,500, and the 2019 Family HSA contribution limit is increasing to $7,000. We do not anticipate that the HSA contribution limits for 2019 will change as they did for 2018.

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The IRS has announced it is modifying the annual limitation on deductions for contributions to a health savings account (“HSA”) allowed for taxpayers with family coverage under a high deductible health plan (“HDHP”) for the 2018 calendar year. Under Rev. Proc. 2018-27, taxpayers will be allowed to treat $6,900 as the annual limitation, rather than the $6,850 limitation announced in Rev. Proc. 2018-18 earlier this year.

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