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Health Care Reform: Five Top Employer Concerns
Keeping up with changes under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a challenge for all employers. Here are the top five issues to keep on your radar:
The employer mandate. Under the ACA, large employers will be required to provide affordable health care insurance that meets minimum value to all full-time employees beginning in 2015. Final regulations issued in February 2014 clarify most aspects of how the mandate will be implemented.
The individual mandate. Beginning Jan. 1, 2014, all individuals are required to carry qualified health insurance known as "minimum essential coverage" or face penalties when they file taxes in the spring of 2015. In 2014, the penalty for noncompliance will be the greater of $95 per uninsured person or 1 percent of household income over the filing threshold. This penalty will rise in 2015 and again in 2016. Read More
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UnitedHealth leads transparency charge
May 14 (Bloomberg) -- UnitedHealth Group Inc. will lead an industry effort to throw a spotlight on the prices paid for health care services, making their costs available to consumers on the Internet.
The effort, announced today and organized by a nonprofit called the Health Care Cost Institute, builds on steps the Obama administration has taken to shed light on prices charged by health-care providers. Medicare, the program for the elderly and disabled, released databases in 2013 and this year that revealed what it paid hospitals and physicians, over the objections of both industries. Read More
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Report touts MLR savings
A new report touts the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's medical loss ratio provision, saying it's saved consumers more than $3 billion in 2011 and 2012.
Half of the amount was returned to consumers in rebates by carriers, a report out Tuesday from the Commonwealth Fund found. Carriers also reduced profits and spending on brokers' fees, marketing and other administrative items to the tune of $1.4 billion.
Under the MLR rule, in effect since 2011 - and met with criticism from the insurance industry - carriers are required to spend 80 percent (for small-group and individual plans) or 85 percent (for large-group plans) of premiums on actual medical care and quality improvement activities. Read More
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