Sunday, April 29, 2012

Weekend Update

The House of Representatives and the Senate are in recess this coming week.

Also this week, May 1 marks the earliest effective date for FEHBP coverage of Indian tribal employees under the Affordable Care Act initiative that OPM is managing. The FEHBlog anticipates that most Tribal employers will elect to join at the beginning of a new plan year, typically January 1.

Speaking of ACA initiatives assigned to OPM, the George Washington University School of Public Health recently published an interesting research paper about the multi-state plans which OPM will create by contract similar to FEHB plans. However, these MSPs will participate in the state exchanges beginning in 2014, not the FEHBP. The authors, Trish Riley and Jane Hyatt Thorpe, observed that the MSPs may be a good landing place for members of Congress and their personal staff members whom the ACA kicked out of the FEHBP.  One of the tricky issues related to this transition is that federal employees, including the staff members, are entitled to FEHBP coverage into retirement if they have five years of FEHBP coverage preceding retirement. Personal staff members who are close to retirement age may be elect to retire before 2014 in order to preserve their FEHBP coverage.

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