[GPSCC-chat] Quote-of-the-day Digest, Vol 116, Issue 4

Sat Sep 7 11:26:05 PDT 2013

This is great. I wish we could kind of streamline it for a piece of tabling literature.

________________________________
 From: Gerald Hunt <gwhunt97 at comcast.net>
To: 'Greg Miller-HCA' <brogregm at sbcglobal.net>; 'Sandy Perry-HCA' <perrysandy at aol.com>; 'Caroline Yacoub-Green Party' <carolineyacoub at att.net>; Jim Doyle <j.m.doyle at sbcglobal.net>; Joan Simon <peacenut99 at yahoo.com>; Lynne Penek-Holden <lpenek at yahoo.com>; Bob Applebaum-HCA <bobjohnston4503 at earthlink.net> 
Sent: Saturday, September 7, 2013 10:47 AM
Subject: FW: Quote-of-the-day Digest, Vol 116, Issue 4

ACA means complexity upon complexity upon complexity . . . . 

This reflects another step towards Single Payer as a rescue of Government
trying to regulate that for which it has forfeited control.

Gerry
-----Original Message-----
From: quote-of-the-day-bounces at mccanne.org
[mailto:quote-of-the-day-bounces at mccanne.org] On Behalf Of
quote-of-the-day-request at mccanne.org
Sent: Saturday, September 07, 2013 9:00 AM
To: quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org
Subject: Quote-of-the-day Digest, Vol 116, Issue 4

Today's Topics:

   1. qotd: IRS reporting requirements for managing ACA subsidies
      and    penalties (Don McCanne)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

U.S. Department of the Treasury
September 5, 2013
Treasury Issues Proposed Rules for Information Reporting by Employers and
Insurers Under the Affordable Care Act

The ACA provides for information reporting (under Internal Revenue Code
section 6055) by insurers, self-insuring employers, and other parties that
provide health coverage.  It also provides for information reporting (under
Code section 6056) by employers that are large enough to be subject to the
employer shared responsibility provisions regarding the health coverage they
offer their full-time employees. These proposed regulations reflect comments
received and an ongoing dialogue with stakeholders, including plan sponsors,
many of whom already offer their full-time workforce coverage far exceeding
the minimum employer shared responsibility requirements. Nearly
95 percent of employers with more than 50 full-time employees already offer
coverage to their employees.

The proposed rules issued today describe a variety of options to potentially
reduce or streamline information reporting, such as:

* Replacing section 6056 employee statements with Form W-2 reporting on
offers of employer-sponsored coverage to employees, spouses, and dependents.

* Eliminating the need to determine whether particular employees are
full-time if adequate coverage is offered to all potentially full-time
employees.

* Allowing employers to report the specific cost to an employee of
purchasing employer-sponsored coverage only if the cost is above a specified
dollar amount.

* Allowing self-insured group health plans to avoid furnishing employee
statements under both section 6055 and section 6056 by furnishing a single
substitute statement.

* Limited reporting for certain self-insured employers offering no-cost
coverage to employees and their families.

* Permitting health insurance issuers to forgo reporting under section 6055
on individual coverage offered through a Marketplace because that
information will be provided by the Marketplace.

* Permitting health insurance issuers, employers, and other reporting
entities under section 6055 to forgo reporting the specific dates of
coverage (instead reporting only the months of coverage), the amount of any
cost-sharing reductions, or the portion of the premium paid by an employer.

The statute calls for employers, insurers, and other reporting entities to
report, among other things:

For section 6055:

* Information about the entity providing coverage, including contact
information.

* A list of individuals with identifying information and the months they
were covered.

For section 6056:

* Information about the applicable large employer offering coverage
(including contact information for the employer and the number of full-time
employees).

* A list of full-time employees and information about the coverage offered
to each, by month, including the cost of self-only coverage.

Once the final rules have been published, reporting entities will be
encouraged to voluntarily implement information reporting in 2014 (when
reporting will be optional), in preparation for the full application of the
reporting provisions in 2015.  Real-world testing of reporting systems in
2014 will contribute to a smoother transition to full implementation in
2015.

Press Release:
http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2157.aspx

Information Reporting by Applicable Large Employers on Health Insurance
Coverage Offered Under Employer-Sponsored Plans:
http://federalregister.gov/a/2013-21791

Information Reporting of Minimum Essential Coverage:
http://federalregister.gov/a/2013-21783

Comment:  Here it is folks. These are the proposed ACA rules on reports that
insurers and employers must file with the IRS - rules that proved to be so
complex that the Obama administration deferred for a year the requirement
that these reports be filed. Without these reports, the employer mandate
could not be enforced. Though this announcement is about the simplification
of the rules, that's not the real story here.

When the Act was crafted, it was recognized that health insurance and health
care was now so expensive that a majority would require subsidies for
insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses. It was also recognized that
plans would have to provide a defined set of minimal "essential health
benefits." It was also recognized that many individuals would not buy health
plans for themselves unless they were threatened with a financial penalty
for failing to do so.

It was decided that the Internal Revenue Service was best suited to
administer these subsidies and penalties since they already had income
information that would establish eligibility for the income-indexed
subsidies. They were also in a position to use the tax system to assess
penalties for non-compliance. But there are so many variables that the rule
making process was overwhelmed. Even these new rules issued yesterday are
not yet final and are open to public comment.

If you just glance at the few changes to simplify the rules (listed above),
you will see that even they are quite complex. By the time that the
multitude of variables for each individual are taken into consideration, you
will see that the bureaucracy is living up to its reputation for complexity
that induces intolerable frustrations. This isn't even necessary. This
system is yet another administrative nightmare in a health care system that
is unique in all the world for its profound administrative waste.

If you are masochistic and want to research this yourself, here are some
resources. Sec. 1502 of the Affordable Care Act amends Part III of
Subchapter A of Chapter 61 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 by adding
Subpart D - Sec. 6055 on the reporting of health insurance coverage. Sec.
1514 of the Affordable Care Act amends Subpart D that was just added by Sec.
1502, by inserting after Sec. 6055 the new section - Sec. 6056. So look up
Sec. 1502 and Sec. 1514 in the Affordable Care Act. The newest proposed
rules, which are the subject of the Department of the Treasury release on
simplification of the rules (reported above), are available now online and
will be formally published in the Federal Register on September 9, 2013. The
proposed rules, "Information Reporting by Applicable Large Employers on
Health Insurance Coverage Offered Under Employer-Sponsored Plans," are 72
pages (link above). The proposed rules, "Information Reporting of Minimum
Essential Coverage," are 42 pages (link above).

Think of how much simpler it would be if we established a single national
fund to pay for all reasonable health care for everyone and then funded it
with progressive taxes. The tax system is already in place. We could tweak
it so that it is even more equitable. Just think of the administrative
simplification that we could have, as opposed to the exceedingly meager
changes announced yesterday in the highly complex system established by ACA.

Yes, the more we see of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, the
more we realize that a single payer national health program is an
imperative. All we have to do is fix Medicare so it works better, and then
include everyone.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
<http://two.pairlist.net/pipermail/quote-of-the-day/attachments/20130906/e07
75216/attachment.htm>

------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Quote-of-the-day mailing list
Quote-of-the-day at mccanne.org
http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day

End of Quote-of-the-day Digest, Vol 116, Issue 4
************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.cagreens.org/pipermail/sosfbay-discuss_lists.cagreens.org/attachments/20130907/97cecaad/attachment.html>