November 5, 2012
On the eve of Election Day, it soon will be time to shift from rhetoric to results.
Whether they support President Obama or former governor Mitt Romney, a major issue for benefits professionals is the future of health care reform. While an Obama re-election means full-steam ahead for implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Romney vowed throughout the campaign to repeal PPACA on day one of his presidency.
However, each man faces obstacles for achieving his agenda, according to EBN legal contributor Frank Palmieri. Palmieri, an employee benefits attorney with Palmieri & Eisenberg in Princeton, N.J., offers his thoughts on what lies ahead for PPACA regardless of who wins at the ballot box tomorrow.
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| Mitt Romney (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
“The president is only one of the three prongs in our government,” Palmieri says. “And he can say, ‘I promise to repeal it,’ but he can’t do it by himself.” Even if PPACA does get repealed, he adds, “I think there are some [PPACA provisions] that are not going to go away, [like] coverage for pre-existing conditions and coverage for children up to age 26,” citing the provisions’ public popularity and that the dependent eligibility extension already has become entrenched in employer plans….
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| Official photographic portrait of US President Barack Obama (born 4 August 1961; assumed office 20 January 2009) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Obama also will have to cope with employers that have been sluggish on PPACA compliance and states that have been slow to create the infrastructure for health insurance exchanges. “A lot of people have been on the sidelines watching and waiting to see what happens with the election,” Palmieri notes, adding that there is an advantage for employers who began compliance from the outset. “It happens all the time in benefits — those who act early get to act twice, For [companies that] are proactive and get started on compliance, deadlines get extended and rules get changed.”
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| Maximum Out-of-Pocket Premium Payments Under PPACA (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Larger employers already subject to the coverage mandate, “will want to see if the exchanges are an effective alternative.” For employers who do opt to send employees to exchanges, he forecasts they’ll “have to hire someone in the payroll or HR department [to be] what I call the exchange manager, because if you have employees [in multiple states], you’ll have to manage exchanges in all of those states. It’s a whole new position I think we’ll have by 2014.”
Another assessment for employers to make in an Obama second term is reviewing part-time staff “to see who’s working an average of 30 hours a week, and whether to cut back on the hours they work,” he says. “Say Mary, John and Harry are 30 hours a week and you haven’t given them benefits in the past. Now, they have to come into your plan,” because PPACA mandates coverage for part-time employees working at least 30 hours per week.
Or, a final consideration for employers would be to “drop coverage altogether and pay the penalty. A lot of large employers have already indicated that they’re thinking about that seriously,” Palmieri says. “All you need is one or two large employers to do it, and others will consider it a viable option.”
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