The drama on what, if anything, to do with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) aka Obamacare continues. There are two very different new proposal in the Senate. The GCHJ proposal might be voted on the week of September 25. We’ll see what happens.  I have a description of both the Republican GCHJ proposal and Senator Sanders’ S. 1804, Medicare for all Health Insurance bill below.

Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson (GCHJ) Proposal, introduced on 9/13/17 as an amendment to H.R. 1628, would repeal the ACA and instead offer block grants (run through CHIP) to states. Sponsors claim the proposal treats everyone the same regardless of where they live. Read More

Presidential candidate Clinton has called for repeal one of the numerous parts of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare).  Reuters reports that on September 29, 2015, she called for repeal of the “Cadillac tax” provision that goes into effect starting in 2018 (“Clinton calls for repeal of ‘Cadillac tax’ on healthcare plans,” by John Whitesides, Reuters, 9/29/15).

A few observations on this:

• What happens when one piece of the complete healthcare reform plan is removed? The Cadillac tax raises revenue by imposing an excise tax on certain expensive plans offered to employees (see IRC Section 4980I).  Likely it also is an incentive not to offer these Read More

It has been five years since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the ACA) was signed into law. Healthcare reform has certainly been controversial, but this controversy does not absolve some businesses of certain responsibilities when it comes to offering minimum essential healthcare coverage to their employees.

In recognition of the five-year anniversary of healthcare reform, here are 5 things you should know about some of the key ACA requirements for businesses in 2015:

1. The shared responsibility provision of healthcare reform is effective either this year or next year, depending on how many employees you have. Also known as the employer mandate or “play or pay,” this provision requires companies with at least 50 full-time Read More