Even though NAHU and many other business and employer groups are pushing for a repeal of the Cadillac tax on Capitol Hill, that hasn’t stopped the IRS from beginning the excise tax’s implementation process. Earlier this year they released Notice 2015-16, Excise Tax on High-Cost Employer-Sponsored Health Coverage, to start the discussion about how the tax will be assessed on employers. Today, NAHU submitted very detailed comments to the Department of Treasury on the notice... Read More

The 21st Century Cures bill took the health headlines in Congress this week. On Wednesday, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI-6) along with Diana DeGette (D-CO-1) introduced legislation that has been years in the making to update the processes by which pharmaceuticals, medical devices and other medical inventions are approved, in addition to new telehealth, health IT and interoperability regulations that would set a single standard by 2018, FDA rules, and new funding for the National Institutes of Health to help with the additional workload the bill imposes. This is an update to the draft bill that was released in late April... Read More

This week, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and the Treasury jointly released a new FAQ on the coverage of preventive services. The notice includes clarification on contraception coverage, advanced preventive breast cancer screenings, coverage for transgender individuals and coverage for dependent children. The guidance clarified that insurers must cover without cost-sharing at least one form of contraception in each of the 18 FDA identified methods. It must also cover clinical services, including education and counseling, necessary for obtaining contraception. However, insurers can continue to use cost-sharing on products so long as one version is available without cost-sharing, such as covering a generic but not a brand name. Providers can override these if they determine that a product is medically necessary... Read More

This week, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Representative Tom Price (R-GA-6) proposed new solutions for how states could respond to a ruling from the Supreme Court in the much-anticipated King v. Burwell case challenging the validity of subsidies in federal marketplace states. Price proposed a full repeal/replace measure while Cassidy proposed to largely keep PPACA federally but allow states to be able to completely opt-out of the health reform law should subsidies be struck down by the court. Instead, states would receive federal funding that they otherwise would have received for PPACA implementation to create their own health reform programs at the state level to cover the uninsured. The proposal is similar in scope to a provision already included in the PPACA, Section 1332, which is set to go into effect in 2017... Read More

NAHU was featured in more than 336 news stories this week, reaching an audience of more than 3.2 billion people. You can access the major stories, including social media and articles from Associated Press, Yahoo! News, Bloomberg, Reuters US News, Fox News, The Huffington Post, CBS, NBC, ABC, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Gate, Houston Chronicle, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 100.7 Jack FM, The News & Observer (NC), Toledo News Now, The Denver Post, The Tampa Tribune, The Business Journals, BenefitsPro, Insurance News Net, LifeHealthPro and Insurance & Financial Advisor, on the NAHU in the News webpage. Please review April’s Media Hit Highlights PowerPoint for more detailed information on the association's and our members' overall efforts in the top-tiered press hits... Read More

One of the most vulnerable Republicans in the Senate got a legitimate challenger yesterday. Former Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin announced he will run again to try to win back the seat he lost in 2010 during the tea party wave to businessman Ron Johnson. Senator Johnson was thought to be in grave danger of losing his seat even before he got a formidable opponent, with approval ratings in the low 30s. A recent poll before Feingold announced his campaign had a hypothetical matchup of Feingold versus Johnson, with Feingold up by 16 percentage points! While the reality lies somewhere in between that large margin, for an incumbent to be starting in such a poor position before campaigning has even begun is not a good sign... Read More

We accidentally deleted this whole column a little while ago while trying to piece this update together, but this is what we think we were reading! We blame post-Cadillac tax comment exhaustion and hope you enjoy it anyway!... Read More