On November 19, Senator Thune of South Dakota introduced S. 1724, the “Union Tax Fairness Act,” which proposes to provide that the reinsurance fee to be paid by health insurers and third-party administrators (on behalf of group plans) under the transitional reinsurance program of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) be applied equally to all such issuers and administrators so that no special exemptions are available. This requirement would not be waivable. The bill (which can be read here) has been referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. A companion house bill, H.R. 3755, was introduced by Congressman Perry of Pennsylvania on December 12 and has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
In other ACA reinsurance-related legislative activity, Congressman Tiberi of Ohio introduced on November 13 H.R. 3489, a bill to amend Section 1341 of the ACA to repeal entirely the funding mechanism for the transitional reinsurance program. The bill (which can be read here) reminds that the transitional reinsurance program was established to stabilize risk in the individual health insurance market during the first three years of the health insurance exchanges established by the ACA, but it then emphasizes (1) that the reinsurance fees to be paid to the U.S. Treasury serve as a disincentive for employers to continue offering coverage to all employees and (2) that employers do not receive any benefits of the program. That bill has been referred to the House Subcommittee on Health.
This post written by Kyle Whitehead.
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