Health Insurance Regulation – Insurance
The health care reforms included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) aim to expand coverage to millions of Americans and will require a large number of changes to health insurance products and the regulations that govern them.
One immediate reform resulting from changes made by the PPACA –– health coverage provided for dependents. The federal law will allow children to remain on their parent’s health plan up to age 26 and this new requirement applies to all health plans. However, Ohio has a similar requirement that allows parents to keep their children on their health plan up to age 28, but this requirement does not apply to private “self insured” employer plans. The new federal law will complement Ohio law.
The Internal Revenue Service announced that these changes immediately allow employers with cafeteria plans –– plans that allow employees to choose from a menu of tax-free benefit options and cash or taxable benefits –– to permit employees to begin making pre-tax contributions to pay for this expanded benefit.
IRS Notice 2010-38 explains these changes and provides further guidance to employers, employees, health insurers and other interested taxpayers.
PPACA also requires the establishment of a web portal through which individuals and small businesses can obtain information about the insurance coverage options that may be available to them in their state. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a interim final rule in order to implement this mandate. This interim final rule adopts the categories of information that will be collected and displayed as web portal content, and the data we will require from issuers and request from States, associations, and high risk pools in order to create this content.