Inflation has increased the cost of goods and services for most every employer, while low unemployment rates have pushed-up wage and benefit costs across the country. Restaurants, in particular, have seen their costs across the board soar, impacting already slim margins.

Some businesses have started to provide line-item detail of these additional expenses to customers, typically to help justify price increases or to make a political statement.

While this practice isn’t entirely new (it started to gain prominence ten years ago with the passage of the employer mandate, part of the Affordable Care Act), recent actions in this regard by two Scottsdale Arizona restaurants resulted in a $20,000 fine.

Despite originally announcing that both the COVID Public Health Emergency and National Emergency would end on May 11, President Biden has signed a resolution ending the National Emergency effective as of April 10, 2023.

Plan sponsors will now have less time to react to the end of the National Emergency, but this does not mean that all COVID coverage mandates or extensions have ended.

What Is Ending?
The end of the National Emergency brings the end of the “Outbreak Period” which gives additional time for individuals to:

• elect and pay for COBRA,
• exercise HIPAA Special Enrollment Rights to change plan elections mid-year, and
• file claims and request appeals of adverse claim decisions under ERISA.

In today's blog post we'll address what's ending, what's not ending, and what plan sponsors need to now do.

On nearly the eve of its expiration, Congress has extended the ability of high deductible health plans (“HDHPs”) to offer first-dollar telehealth coverage through plan years beginning before January 1, 2025. This will allow participants receiving this coverage to continue to contribute to a health savings account (“HSA") for this purpose.

Separately, the agencies responsible for enforcing prescription drug reporting have issued good faith relief, an extension, and some additional flexibility in reporting.

With over a million ballots cast so far statewide, Arizona voters are already making their voices heard in the 2022 mid-term election. In addition to Arizona's more obvious races in the national spotlight, Arizona has a measure on the ballot that may also interest those living outside the state.
 
Known as Prop 209, this measure would reduce the maximum interest rate allowable on medical debt from 10% to 3% and expand the assets exempt from medical debt collectors.

If it passes, it may prompt other states to move in this direction, especially those more progressive states or those states with significant populations in medical debt.

Earlier this year the IRS announced proposed regulations extending ACA affordability to other tiers of employer-sponsored group medical coverage (employee + child/spouse, family, etc.). Today the IRS released final regulations.  

Previously, ACA affordability was based solely on the employee-only tier of coverage. If an employee was offered affordable, minimum-value coverage, the spouse and dependent children would not be eligible to purchase subsidized coverage on the exchange.

Under this new rule, if the family tier of coverage is not affordable, spouses and/or dependent children will now be eligible to purchase subsidized coverage on the exchange, provided they don’t have their own offer of affordable coverage.