ASA Staffing Success - Staffing Law 2016 No. 2

The Affordable Care Act requires pub- lic health care exchanges (also called “marketplaces”) to notify employers when an employee is certified as eligible to receive a premium tax credit (“subsidy”) and enrolls in exchange coverage—and to advise the employer that this might result in an employer tax assessment.

For 2015, staffing firms that offered
minimum essential coverage (MEC) to at
least 70% of their full-time employees
(which the great majority did) may be subject
to the so-called “b” tax assessment if the
coverage offered did not provide “minimum
value” (including substantial inpatient hospi-
tal and physician services) or was unafford-
able—and at least one employee received
a subsidy. Firms that offered affordable
minimum value “lite” plans (i.e., no hospi-
tal or physician coverage) that met special
“grandfather” rules will not be subject to
the “b” tax even if an employee receives a
subsidy.

Staffing firms received very few exchange notices in 2015, and few thus far in 2016— all from states that set up their own health care exchanges ( 13 states plus Washington, DC, fall in this category). No notices have been issued thus far by the 37 exchanges (“federally facilitated exchanges”) operated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; they are expected to begin issuing notices sometime this summer. A list of health care exchanges by type of exchange is available at kff.org.

The ACA also requires that employers
receiving notices be given an opportunity
to appeal eligibility determinations—for
example, because the employer offered
affordable, minimum value coverage. Some