Frank C. Morris, Jr., a Member of the Firm in the
Litigation and Employee Benefits practices and head of the Labor and
Employment practice in the Washington, DC, office, was quoted in an
article titled "Companies Face Huge Healthcare Decisions, Despite
Delays."
Following is an excerpt:
Employers
may be getting a temporary reprieve from the "pay-or-play" employer
mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but that
doesn't mean other healthcare reform requirements won't be hitting them
soon. On July 2, the Treasury Department and White House announced that
some employer reporting requirements and the employer shared
responsibility penalty of the healthcare reform law have been pushed
forward to 2015.Many other aspects of the ACA remain in effect or
are close at hand, despite the delay. It's crucial for employers to
address benefit design issues, with or without the "pay-or-play" delay,
right now, says Frank Morris, head of the law firm Epstein Becker &
Green's Labor and Employment practice.As a concession to
businesses, and in an attempt to facilitate the post-reform transition,
"If you are not taking proactive steps now to control your costs you
will be quite likely hit with a 40 percent, non-deductible excise tax,"
Morris says. "If you are the chief of benefits or human resources, you
don't want to be explaining to the CFO and CEO why your organization is
paying this extra tax. The only time you can do something about it is
now, not in 2018."There are also some incentives in the ACA that
companies won't have to wait to take advantage of. For example, the ACA
increases the allowed wellness incentive from 20 percent of the cost of
coverage to 30 percent for plan years that begin on, or after, Jan. 1,
2014. According to Morris, companies should ramp up their offering of
wellness programs, an effort that by improving employee health and
decreasing their utilization of healthcare services will drive down
benefit costs."Because it is a process, and takes time, an
employer cannot just sit back and wait to see what happens," Morris
says. Other cost-saving moves that companies should consider: value
based purchasing and steering employees to retail clinics that offer
lower-cost services. "Anything that can maximize employee health, but
minimizes costs, is on the table," he says. "The focus is on bang for
the buck."
