TGIF

Well we deserve a TGIF this week because it was a full work week. The FEHBlog's high school senior son was shocked this morning when there was no two hour school delay even though it was lightly snowing. The snow has now stopped.

The Obama Administration keeps rolling out new Affordable Care Act regulations. On Wednesday HHS and IRS regulations governing the individual mandate (or tax in Chief Justice Roberts view) were issued. Here's a link to the HHS fact sheet.  According to these rules, federal and postal employees and annuitants who enroll for FEHBP coverage, which is employer sponsored coverage, will not be subject to the individual mandate penalty, which is $95 in 2014 and ramps up to $695 over three years or so.

The Hill's Healthwatch blog observes that "The Obama administration had a clear message Wednesday as it issues rules for the healthcare law's individual mandate: Not many people will be affected by the new requirement to buy insurance or pay a penalty." That can't make insurers happy as they have been relying a strong penalty / tax to offset the risks of eliminating pre-existing condition penalties.

As an aside, the FEHBlog refers readers to the New York Times Economix blog which explores an interesting and perfectly legal (for now) approach to gaming the individual mandate. Complex laws get people to thinking.

Around Thanksgiving, the IRS issued proposed welllness program rules allowing health plan sponsors to adjust premiums based on certain health factors as wellness program incentives. These rules do not apply to the FEHBP because there is a statutory contribution formula (5 U.S.C. § 8906). The comment period on this rule recently ended. Business Insurance reports that several powerful Democratic members of Congress asked regulators "to severely limit wellness programs that use premium variation based on health status factors as an incentive, by narrowing the allowable health status factors to tobacco use only."   Given the fact that HHS responded to similar objections to the HITECH Act rule, the FEHBlog expects HHS to jump again here (and why not? -- although health cost curve up).