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Overview: This webinar will provide an update on health care reform, describing where we are now, including the latest court challenges, what needs to be done right away (if it has not already been done), what needs to be done in the near future and strategies for 2015 and beyond.

The Supreme Court has ruled that some employers are not subject to the contraceptive mandate. This webinar will review the guidance issued by the federal government in the wake of this decision. The Supreme Court has accepted a challenge to the subsidies available in federally facilitated exchanges. This webinar will review the status of this case and possible implications.

Employer mandate penalties will apply in 2015 and this webinar will describe those penalties, how they interact with the subsidies available in the exchanges (also known as marketplaces) and various strategies for avoiding or minimizing the penalties. This webinar will describe defined terms in the law, including minimum essential coverage, minimum value, affordability, full-time employee and applicable large employer. The rules defining full-time employees are complex and the requirements related to measurement, administrative and stability periods have changed; this webinar will cover all those developments.

This webinar will describe recent guidance has effectively altered the definition of minimum value coverage to require significant benefits for hospital and physician services.

Employers will be required to submit detailed reports in 2016 covering all of 2015 and this webinar will describe the data employers should be gathering now to prepare for these new reports.

This webinar will describe the guidance issued related to individual health insurance policies and some of the schemes to allow employers to reimburse employees for purchasing individual policies, that are now considered illegal.

This webinar will also discuss recent guidance related to reference-based pricing. Other recent guidance to be covered will include regulations expanding the definition of plans excepted from many requirements of health care reform.

Because of the existence of the new exchanges created by health care reform, the cafeteria plan rules regarding mid-year plan changes have been modified and this webinar will discuss those changes.

Health care reform also has a major impact on health reimbursement arrangements and flexible spending accounts for unreimbursed health care expenses. This webinar will describe these changes.

Health care reform also imposes a number of new fees and taxes. Most of them cannot be avoided; however, plans can avoid what amounts to a new federal premium tax by self-funding. Some states are making efforts to make self-funding less attractive. This webinar will describe the new fees and taxes, talk about the advantages and disadvantages of self-funding and review some of the latest state laws affecting self-funding.

Individual mandate penalties applied in 2014 and this webinar will describe those penalties, which will be deducted from tax refunds payable in 2015. These strategies involve plan design, employee contributions, size of the workforce, hours worked and more.

More guidance on health care reform is constantly being issued and the latest guidance published before the webinar will be covered.

Why should you attend: Health care reform is very complex and affects employer-sponsored health plans in many ways. Keeping up with all the regulations and other guidance is almost a full-time job. Benefit professionals need to stay on top of developments in order to avoid penalties. Starting in 2015, there will be penalties for employers with 100 or more employees that fail to offer all full-time employees affordable coverage that meets a minimum value test. Starting in 2016, there will be penalties for employers with 50 or more employees that fail to do so. In 2015, employers with 50-99 employees are only exempt from penalties if they satisfy certain transition relief requirements. There are already penalties that apply to failure to provide certain notices or to comply with other requirements of the law.

There continue to be judicial challenges to various aspects of health care reform and people dealing with benefits need to stay aware of the latest developments. The biggest changes for employers start in 2015 and how employers and individuals react to these changes will drive even more structural changes to the health insurance marketplace.

In addition to avoiding penalties, employers want to avoid excessive costs. There are ways to avoid some, but not all, of the new taxes and fees imposed by health care reform. There are also ways to restructure plan design and employee contributions to hold down employer costs.

The agencies responsible for enforcing the law are cracking down on schemes as they emerge. A major area of focus has to do with schemes to reimburse employees for the cost of individual health insurance policies.

Areas Covered in the Session:

• Describe the pending court challenge to health care reform subsidies
• Overview of health care reform's requirements for employer-sponsored group health plans
• Review strategies to avoid penalties
• Discuss impact of new fees and taxes
• Describe alternative plan designs and employee contribution approaches to hold down costs
• Identify the latest guidance and appropriate action steps

Who Will Benefit:

• Vice President of Human Resources
• Director of Compensation & Benefits
• Benefit Manager
• Benefit Specialist
• Insurance Agent
• Insurance Broker
• Employee Benefits Consultant
• Group Insurance Representative