The federal government recently issued final regulations that apply to the “employer mandate” or “play or pay” provisions under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). These provisions require employers with 50 or more employees to offer full-time employees (and their dependents) the opportunity to enroll in an adequate and affordable employer-sponsored health plan or pay a penalty. Last year, the government postponed enforcement of the new mandate until 2015. Now, the government has provided a further delay for employers with 50 to 99 employees and modified for one-year the coverage requirement that applies to employers with 100 or more employees: Employers …
Supreme Court Will Hear Religious Freedom Cases
The Supreme Court agreed on November 26, 2013 to hear the religious challenges of Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. to the contraceptive coverage requirements of the Affordable Care Act. While not on the Supreme Court website calendar yet, the latest information indicates the cases will be heard in March. The Court has consolidated the two cases and scheduled only one hour of argument for both cases. As discussed in earlier blog posts (Supreme Court Asked to Decide If Corporations Have Religious Freedom and Do For-Profit Corporations Have Religious Freedom?), the general issue is whether for-profit companies with …
Ohio Approves Medicaid Expansion Under Affordable Care Act
The Controlling Board, a state legislative panel which oversees spending federal funds, voted October 21, 2013 to accept $2.56 billion from the federal government to extend Medicaid coverage to approximately 300,000 low income Ohioans. The expansion would allow, among others, childless adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level (approximately $16,000 for one person ) to be eligible for health care under Medicaid. Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government will fully fund the Medicaid expansion for three years. After three years, the federal funding is gradually reduced until it reaches 90% in 2020. Critics of the …
Supreme Court Asked to Decide If Corporations Have Religious Freedom
As discussed in an earlier blog post, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) created a controversy about whether for-profit corporations have religious freedom. The issue concerns the requirement under ACA that health insurance sufficient to avoid penalties must include coverage for certain forms of birth control. Businesses closely held by families with strong religious convictions are objecting to this requirement as an infringement of religious freedom. In June Hobby Lobby and Mardel, Christian corporations owned by the same family, received a court order preventing the federal government from enforcing the contraception requirement and any related penalties. Also in …
Do For-Profit Corporations Have Religious Freedom?
A provision under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has raised the question of whether for-profit corporations have religious freedom. The ACA through guidelines from the Health Resources and Services Administration requires that non-grandfathered group health plans and individual health insurance cover, without cost to the individual, all FDA-approved contraceptive methods. The FDA-approved methods include contraception known as the “morning-after pill” and the “week-after pill”, which the FDA has acknowledged can terminate pregnancy after conception. While exemptions for contraception coverage have been made for religious non-profit corporations, no exemptions are available to for-profit corporations. In Oklahoma (10th Circuit …
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