Affordable Care Act: What You Need to Know
Course Description:
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) affects health insurance coverage for most Americans, and it has a considerable impact on the organization’s health insurance plan. Supervisors need to understand the basic requirements and benefits of the ACA so they can work with Human Resources to ensure employees understand how the law affects them and answer basic questions employees often have about how the law affects their health insurance coverage. By the end of the course, you will be able to identify the purpose of the ACA, understand it’s key provisions, and explain how the law affects employees. Duration: 23 minutes.
Why “Affordable Care Act: What You Need to Know” Matters:
Although ACA’s individual mandate was discarded in tax reforms, the ACA is still very much an issue facing employers. Key provisions are set to be implemented through 2022, so it’s essential that supervisors are informed about the developments in the law.
Key Points:
Certain employers are required to either provide coverage for employees or pay an annual fee. Many employers are required to offer coverage to employees or pay fees and penalties. This mandate is often referred to as the employer “play-or- pay” rule. The law established new rules for administering health insurance to simplify and standardize procedures, making it easier to interact with insurance companies and handle paperwork. The ACA also prohibits practices that restrict coverage, such as rejecting individuals because of preexisting conditions, imposing unreasonable coverage limits, and rescinding coverage when people suffer from serious and costly illnesses. Grandfather rules exempt group health plans that were in existence on March 23, 2010, from many of ACA’s requirements, but even those plans must comply with some aspects of the ACA. To help the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collect data and enforce the play-or-pay provision, the ACA imposes detailed annual reporting requirements for employers and health insurers.
