This morning, the Supreme Court held in a 6-3 decision that the Affordable Care Act authorized federal tax credits for eligible Americans living not only in states with their own exchanges but also in the 34 states with federal exchanges.
What does this mean? It means the IRS was authorized to issue regulations extending health insurance subsidies to coverage purchased through health insurance exchanges run by the federal government or a state.
So, employers cannot avoid employer shared responsibility penalties under Internal Revenue Code section 4980H (“Code § 4980H”) with respect to an employee solely because the employee obtained subsidized exchange coverage in a state that has a health insurance exchange set up by the federal government instead of by the state.
From a big-picture standpoint, it means that the 2010 health care reform law will not be unraveled by the Supreme Court’s decision in this case. The law’s requirements applicable to employers and group health plans continue to apply without change. For more on the implications of the ruling on the ACA, visit Jackson Lewis’s Workplace Resource Center here.
The National Restaurant Association released this statement on that decision:
“While today’s decision by the Supreme Court is one of great importance to the dialogue on health care coverage across the country, there are still a number of fixes to the current law that need to be addressed.
We are concerned that the issues impacting restaurants and the employer community at large have yet to move forward in Congress. Certain provisions within ACA like the definition of full-time employment at 30 hours, the lack of clarity regarding reporting requirements, auto-enrollment, the inconsistency of defining ‘seasonal employment’ and the process of determining which businesses are considered ‘large’ under the law, have placed an enormous amount of undue burden on American businesses large and small.
We have worked tirelessly with Congress on behalf of our membership to find bipartisan solutions to these very real problems and will continue to do so as the discussion on health care continues.”
Visit the NRA website’s Healthcare HQ for a knowledge center of resources on the Affordable Care Act here.
