24 January 2014

Obama Punts on Equal Healthcoverage Coverage for CEO's, Lets the 1% Loot Again

One of the provisions of the PPACA was that senior executives had to get the same sort of insurance as the rest of their workers.

Well, it seems that the Department of Health and Human Services has decided that it's just too hard to come up with rules to implement this portion of the statute:
The Obama administration is delaying enforcement of another provision of the new health care law, one that prohibits employers from providing better health benefits to top executives than to other employees.

Tax officials said they would not enforce the provision this year because they had yet to issue regulations for employers to follow.

The Affordable Care Act, adopted nearly four years ago, says employer-sponsored health plans must not discriminate “in favor of highly compensated individuals” with respect to either eligibility or benefits. The government provides a substantial tax break for employer-sponsored insurance, and, as a matter of equity and fairness, lawmakers said employers should not provide more generous coverage to a select group of high-paid employees.

But translating that goal into reality has proved difficult.

Officials at the Internal Revenue Service said they were wrestling with complicated questions like how to measure the value of employee health benefits, how to define “highly compensated” and what exactly constitutes discrimination.

Bruce I. Friedland, a spokesman for the I.R.S., said employers would not have to comply until the agency issued regulations or other guidance.
This sh%$ ain't rocket science.

Either they are dragging their feet, or they are writing Byzantinely complex rules.

The only reason for complexity is to create loopholes that millionaire campaign contributors executives can drive their Beemers through.

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