David Shillcutt, Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, quoted in the Bloomberg Law Daily Labor Report, in “Trump's Win Endangers Slew of Biden-Era Employee Benefits Rules,” by Lauren Clason, Ben Miller, and Austin R. Ramsey. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
The US Labor Department’s employee benefits regulator under a second Donald Trump presidency is poised to roll back or reverse a series of Biden administration rules governing retirement and healthcare in a callback to priorities set in Trump’s first term.
Employee benefit regulations from the past four years will likely be swept out as the new administration pivots to its own agenda, allowing legal battles to overturn some existing rules without sustained efforts to defend them in court. …
The outlook is [unclear] for Biden’s September rule to strengthen mental health coverage. Republicans and industry groups have criticized the rule’s provisions related to parity in “non-quantitative treatment limitations,” such as requiring doctors to obtain “prior authorization” from insurance companies for a particular treatment. Employers say the rule unfairly burdens them with enforcement, rather than the insurer.
“I think a Trump administration may be friendlier to the quandary that fiduciaries are put in and be more interested to find ways to set clearer standards,” said David Shillcutt, a member at Epstein Becker & Green, P.C.
