Be Prepared For Fall Open Enrollment Changes

Originally posted September 3, 2013 by Amy Gallagher on https://www.golocalworcester.com

The healthcare reform law requires employers to notify employees of available health exchange options by October 1. That means employees will face new health plan choices - and decisions - during open enrollment this year.

Education is Key

With new options comes the need for more education. And that doesn't just mean the health exchange option notice employers are required to provide, which is likely to confuse employees.

Since employees will get to choose between employer-sponsored plans or those offered by the exchanges for the first time, employers should make an extra effort with their communication plans for this fall's open enrollment. And employees should step up their participation in the process as well.

Employee questions...and answers

Employers should provide informative, detailed materials that will enable employees to evaluate their choices and make the best decisions. When reviewing open enrollment resources, employees should follow these five steps:

1. Review the benefits and costs of the employer-sponsored plan. Understand what the employee’s share of the cost is in dollars - an amount that's deducted pre-tax from your paycheck at whatever tax bracket you fall in. For example, an employee who pays $250 monthly of a $500 total monthly individual plan cost will have a deduction (assuming a 30% tax bracket) around $175 monthly.

2. Compare the employee costs above to an individual plan offered through a state-run exchange.Employees who are Rhode Island residents may visit www.HealthSourceRI.com and those who reside in Massachusetts can go to www.mahealthconnector.com for details. Keep in mind that employees who purchase an individual plan through the exchange must pay the full cost of the plan unless you qualify for tax credits to offset, or eliminate, the cost.

3. Determine tax credit by using an online tool and estimating family income for 2014 (before taxes), telling the age of the oldest adult in the family, and entering the total number of adults and children in the household. Generally, employees may be able to get a subsidy if they are single and make up to $45,960, or are a family of four and earn up to $94,200. The exact amount of the subsidy is determed by size of family and level of income, so the less someone makes, the more they will receive.

4. Employees who receive the subsidy should subtract the earned tax credits from the total cost of the exchange plan to determine their total premium cost. Then compare this amount to what you would pay for an employer-sponsored plan.

5. Last, all employees must understand that, starting January 1, 2014, they are mandated to be insured.Whether through an employer or exchange plan, it’s up to you to get coverage, or pay penalties at tax time.


Does out-of-pocket delay actually apply to you?

Originally posted September 3, 2013 by Tristan Lejeune on https://ebn.benefitnews.com

Yet another Affordable Care Act delay is in the spotlight: limits on out-of-pocket spending.

According to the law, starting in 2014, health plan participants will be spending no more than $6,350 in total out-of-pocket costs for individuals and $12,700 for family plans. That cap on out-of-pocket spending has been delayed until 2015, however, if an employer is using two separate vendors for its medical and pharmacy benefits. Sandy Ageloff, southwest health & group benefits leader for Towers Watson, says the rule only applies “to nongrandfathered plans” and emphasizes that the delay only applies to those who split their services.

“So the biggest piece of the legislation,” Ageloff says, “is that compliance is still required for Jan. 1, 2014 if the benefit plan – whether it’s a self-funded employer plan or a fully insured carrier program – is using a single vendor for the administration of both medical and pharmacy. The nuance comes in when you have multiple vendors, you get a one-year deferral in total compliance. You still have to comply in pieces, but you don’t have to comply in total.”

The number of plans that maintain their grandfathered status in the face of ACA continues to shrink, but Ageloff estimates that 35% or 40% of large employers use different vendors and thus have the extra year. Complicating things, she says, is that “a number of carriers actually have, behind the scenes, carved out that relationship with a pharmacy vendor,” so two can masquerade as one. Figuring out compliance may require more than just a phone call to your provider.

“For example, if you look at Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, they have a subcontracted relationship with ESI to manage their pharmacy benefits,” Ageloff says. “Same is true of a lot of other broad-based medical insurance carriers. So the health plans themselves are taking different interpretations on whether the full mandate for 2014 applies to them, or if they get the deferral. So that’s complicating this. As an employer, if I say, I use Anthem BCBS as either my [third-party administrator] or I’m buying an insured product from them, I’m relying on them to tell me how they interpret their own program. So that’s creating some challenges, particularly for self-funded employers who control their own plan design.”

The National Business Group on Health Vice President of Public Policy Steve Wojcik says, like the employer mandate delay, the out-of-pocket postponement was done to allow systems to catch up to what is required of them in terms of processing and accounting. And, like the employer mandate delay, he says it’s good news.

“It means that employers and their plans have another year to consolidate and coordinate,” Wojcik says. “In many cases the issue is that the PBM handles the pharmacy benefit separately and the medical expenses are handled through the health plan, so a lot of times their systems don’t talk with one another, and then the patient or plan member doesn’t have up-to-the-minute information on where they stand toward their out-of-pocket limit.”

Wojcik says “by and large, most people don’t approach their out-of-pocket limits in a year, so for most people, it’s not going to affect them.” For those who do – usually those with chronic conditions or highly expensive pharmacy needs or both – “it will just be another year before they get relief.”


PPACA expected to aggravate job absences

Originally posted August 23, 2013 by Dan Cook on https://www.benefitspro.com

Under pressure to meet the basic requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, employers may be overlooking the law’s implications for employees’ attendance at work.

This observation comes from a survey of employers and insurance providers sponsored by the Disability Management Employer Coalition and Pacific Resources.

The researchers polled 169 benefits policy decision-makers in large organizations and 118 senior professionals in the insurance industry involved with absence management and disability issues. It asked a series of questions designed to measure their employers’ preparedness for the act’s full implementation, including whether they had thoughtfully considered how the reforms might change employee attendance at work and issues around worker disability.

Most have not, the researchers concluded. “While organizations may be prepared for the changes to health care and health insurance, most were not thinking about the impact of PPACA on disability and absence management,” the study said.

Another major finding: both employers and insurers surveyed anticipate “increased incidence and duration of long-term absences.”

Both employers and insurers tended to believe that employee absences will be more frequent and longer. The reason? With more Americans enjoying the benefits of health coverage, there will be longer waiting periods for access to care providers. This will be exacerbated, the report said, by the dwindling numbers of primary care physicians entering the profession.

“Most respondents believe access to routine care will change – 42 percent believe that the ability of employees to see a physician for routine care in a timely manner will get worse, while only 21 percent believe it will improve,” the study reported.

But when it came to questions about the act’s influence on disability issues, there was less clarity among respondents.

“There is more uncertainty about how PPACA will impact the number of disability claims, although those who feel knowledgeable enough to predict what will happen are more likely to believe the number of claims will rise due to employees no longer fearing a loss of health care coverage from a long-term absence,” the study said.

Overall, insurers took a more pessimistic view of the ways in which Obamacare might influence attendance and disability.

“Carriers are more likely than employers to think that PPACA will have an impact on absence and disability,” the study said.  “A third of employers and a majority of carriers believe PPACA will increase the incidence and duration of absences and disability. However, many have not yet considered this aspect of the law, as a quarter are not sure what will happen to absence and disability outcomes.”


Five Things You Don’t Know About Health-Care Reform

 

Originally posted August 21, 2013 by Susan Salka on https://www.businessweek.com

Insurance sign-ups are just around the corner for millions of Americans under health-care reform, yet there’s still much people don’t know about this landmark legislation, particularly those changes occurring over the next decade inside hospitals, clinics, and doctors’ offices.

It’s a workforce thing. All the attention is on politics, or who will receive what benefits and where the money will come from. But the most important question is who will deliver the care and how it will be done. Most of the change will be accomplished by the health-care workforce. Transforming health care is a huge management challenge. Many clinicians and staff will have to fundamentally change their professional objectives and standards, daily routines, compensation, patient relationships, and employer relationships. The scope of health-care reform and current market pressures are unparalleled in any other industry; the re-engineering of health-care workforce roles now underway may completely change relationships between patients and clinicians in the next decade.

Biggest long-term problem: clinician shortages. An additional 30 million Americans will receive health-care coverage by the end of the decade, during a time when a further 15 million patients will become eligible for Medicare. Who will take care of all those people? By 2020, a shortage of 91,500 primary care and specialist physicians is predicted. Shortages of nurse practitioners and physician assistants, who could help fill in the gaps in primary care, also are predicted. Without enough clinicians, effective health-care reform could be stifled.

Getting paid to keep you well, rather than cure your illness. Changes in compensation for doctors and nurses will dramatically transform from quantity of work to quality of work. Until very recently, compensation and reimbursement were entirely based on the volume of patients and treatments. Now they’re beginning to reflect value-based benchmarks that will increase every year. Some of these include patient satisfaction, readmission rates, health risk assessments, and patient wellness, among other benchmarks. For hospitals, making sure patients are satisfied will become a pocketbook issue. For clinicians, careful disease management and preventive care to keep patients out of the hospital could directly affect how much they are paid.

Independent doctors’ practices are quickly fading. Physicians who hang a shingle outside a private office are becoming rarer. A recent survey showed that 55 percent of practicing physicians work for someone else, usually a hospital or a practice owned by a hospital or health system. That figure grew 8 percent in one year. Meanwhile, nearly 40 percent of physicians younger than 45 have never worked in private practice. Doctors are moving to employed positions in hospitals and health systems in search of greater stability in the rapidly changing health-care environment.

Your doctor may not be a doctor. One of the most striking changes for consumers may be team-based care, with physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, psychologists, pharmacists, and others working together to improve quality of care and lower costs. If your health-care provider employs a team approach, when you make an appointment with your doctor you may instead see a nurse practitioner or physician assistant, depending on a quick assessment of your health status. In more than a dozen states, nurse practitioners can diagnose, treat, or prescribe with no physician involvement. Laws and regulations on the scope of practice for these clinicians are changing rapidly.

Health-care reform isn’t just about getting coverage for millions of people who don’t have it. It’s also about changing the way health care is delivered to reduce costs and improve patient care. Unless we can accomplish those two goals, increasing coverage will become prohibitively expensive. Transforming health-care delivery requires the active participation of America’s 16-million member health-care workforce.

 


Health Care Reform Heightens Employers' Strategic Plans for Health Care Benefits

Original article can be found at https://online.wsj.com

Original source: Towers Watson

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--August 21, 2013--

The breadth of health care reform is prompting changes and ushering in emerging opportunities for employers, according to a survey of 420 midsize and large companies by global professional services company Towers Watson (NYSE, NASDAQ: TW). While employers remain concerned about a predicted 5.2% increase in 2014 health care costs and the risk of triggering the excise tax* in 2018, most (82%) continue to view subsidized health care benefits as an important part of their employee value proposition in 2014.

However, the 2013 Health Care Changes Ahead Survey found that a majority of employers do anticipate making moderate to significant changes in their health benefit programs for all employees and retirees by the beginning of 2016. It also revealed a clear disparity in how employers view public and private exchanges. Nearly 30% of employers have confidence in public health insurance exchanges as a viable alternative to employer-sponsored coverage in 2015. In contrast, private exchanges are more appealing, with 58% having confidence in them as a viable alternative. In short, employers are intrigued by the potential of private exchanges to control cost increases, reduce administrative burdens and provide greater value.

Employers remain committed to sponsoring health care benefits, and nearly all (98%) plan to retain their active medical plans for 2014 and 2015. However, they will look to private exchanges as a potential delivery channel. This arrangement enables them to maintain their role as plan sponsor, but outsource certain aspects of plan management to an exchange operator. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of companies surveyed reported that as they evaluate private exchanges for active full-time employees, they will want evidence that private options deliver greater value than the current self-managed model.

"The health care landscape is changing rapidly thanks to health reform, continued cost escalation, the emergence of health benefit exchanges, and new provider contracting and care delivery arrangements," said Randall Abbott, a senior health care consultant at Towers Watson. "While employers are grappling with how to comply with health care reform right now, they are evaluating new health care designs and delivery approaches for their employee and retiree populations that will ultimately transform the look of employer-provided health plans over the next three to five years. In particular, employers recognize the impact of the excise tax requires strategic planning now to create a glide path to 2018."

Initiatives to Avoid the Excise Tax

More than 60% of employers believe that they will trigger the excise tax in 2018 if they don't make adjustments to their current benefit strategy. Nearly the same percentage also say the excise tax will have a moderate or significant influence on their strategy.

To combat the increase in employee health care costs and avoid the excise tax, nearly 40% of employers will be changing their plan designs for 2014. In addition to emphasizing employee wellness and health improvement approaches, employers are looking to increase their use of supply-side strategies and aggressive vendor management techniques. For 2015 or 2016, they are considering providing outcome-based incentives (49%), offering a benefit differential for use of high-performance networks (47%) and using value-based benefit designs (40%). Employers will also be focused on reducing coverage subsidies for spouses and dependents, as well as implementing spousal coverage exclusions or spousal premium surcharges when other health coverage is available.

"Employers are balancing many competing factors as they revisit their financial commitment to health benefits and their ability to maintain a sustainable plan in the face of annual cost increases and the excise tax. They see health care benefits as an important part of their total rewards mix. And as they weigh new options, they will be looking to keep their plans affordable and viable for the long term," said Ron Fontanetta, a senior healthcare consultant at Towers Watson. "In the next two years, many employers will evaluate their strategic options for active employees, and wait to see how exchanges evolve and the broader market responds. We are likely to see a much different -- and much faster -- pace of change in retiree medical plans."

Health Care Coverage for Retirees and Part-Time Workers

With the existence of proven exchange solutions for Medicare-eligible retirees, the percentage of employers that are somewhat or very likely to discontinue their employer-sponsored plan for post-65 retirees will grow from 25% in 2014 to 44% in 2015. And with the advent of public exchanges making new solutions available for pre-65 retirees, the percentage of employers that are somewhat or very likely to discontinue their plan for pre-65 retirees will jump from 10% in 2014 to 38% in 2015.

Less change is expected for part-time employees. Only 11% are considering changes to their total rewards mix or design for part-time employees. Many part-time employees are likely to seek coverage through public exchanges.

Other Notable Trends and Data Points from the Survey

-- CEOs and CFOs have become increasingly involved in health care strategy decisions (36% and 46%, respectively).

-- Seven in 10 employers have a stronger commitment to improving employee health because of health care reform, while 71% have a stronger commitment to work with health care providers and suppliers to improve health care delivery and quality.

-- The use of personalized digital technologies to improve employee health engagement is on the rise. Forty-three percent of companies plan to use the technologies by 2014, and another 31% are considering its use for 2015 or 2016.

-- Half the companies surveyed provided employee communications that go beyond meeting compliance standards in educating employees on the law and its implications; 36% meet minimum compliance standards, and 14% go significantly beyond compliance to prepare employees for planned and potential strategic changes.

*Excise tax: According to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the federal government will impose an excise tax of 40% on insurers of employer-sponsored health plans, including self-insured employers, with an aggregate value of more than $10,200 for individual coverage and $27,500 for family coverage.

About the Survey

The 2013 Towers Watson Health Care Changes Ahead Survey offers insight into the focus and timing of U.S. employers' planned response to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the start of open enrollment for health insurance exchanges in the fall. The survey was completed by 420 employers during July 2013 and reflects respondents' 2014 -- 2016 health care benefit decisions. The responding companies comprise a broad range of industries and business sizes, and collectively employ 8.7 million employees.


More on the Oct. 1 ACA notices: Who has to provide them

Originally posted by Keith R. McMurdy on https://eba.benefitnews.com

After last week’s reminder about the Oct. 1 deadline for Affordable Care Act communications, the following question came up frequently — Does the notice requirement apply to employers with less than 50 employees?

Further clarification is provided in Technical Release 2013-02 called “Guidance on the Notice to Employees of Coverage Options under Fair Labor Standards Act 18B and Updated Model Election Notice under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985.” Section 18B of the FLSA was added as a result of the ACA. And it is 18B of the FLSA that contains the notice requirement that employers must communicate about the ACA with their employees. Overall, it says that every employer that is subject to the FLSA must provide the notice about coverage options. Fact Sheet 14 from the U.S. Department of Labor tells us that businesses covered by the FLSA must have at least two employees, and are those that have an annual dollar volume of sales or business revenue of at least $500,000 or are hospitals, businesses providing medical or nursing care for residents, schools and preschools or government agencies.

So, if your business is subject to the FLSA, you have to give the notice to employees of coverage options to existing employees by Oct. 1, and to all new hires within 14 days. It does not matter if you have 10 or 35 or 50 or 100 employees. If you are subject to the FLSA, you have to provide the notice.

Keith R. McMurdy is a partner with Fox Rothschild, focusing on labor and employment issues. He can be reached at kmcmurdy@foxrothschild.com or 212-878-7919.

This alert is intended for general information and educational purposes and should not be taken as specific legal advice. 


5 most popular voluntary benefits

Originally posted by Kathryn Mayer on https://www.benefitspro.com

As employers consider their health care and total rewards strategies with the context of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, nearly half expect voluntary benefits and services to become more important than ever over the next five years, according to the Towers Watson 2013 Voluntary Benefits and Services Survey.

The survey also found that the importance of voluntary in companies’ total rewards strategy will grow 27 percent in the next half-decade.

For now, these five voluntary benefits are the most commonly offered by employers.

5. Accident insurance

Accident insurance is among the most prevalent voluntary benefit offerings provided by employers: 68 percent offer the protection to their employees.

Other voluntary products that might be making the list in the next couple years? Towers Watson reports critical illness, identity theft and financial counseling are the top voluntary benefits to watch in the coming years.

4. Dental

Dental insurance remains a popular voluntary benefit, with 80 percent of employers offering the benefit.

Diabetes, heart disease, blindness and pregnancy complications all can be affected by dental hygiene and inflate health costs overall.

3. Disability

Benefits experts have long argued disability insurance is just as important as life insurance. And employers seem to agree: Eighty percent of employers surveyed by Towers Watson offer it.

According to the Social Security Administration, a staggering 30 percent of people will encounter a disability of three months or longer at some point during their working years.

2. Vision

Employers also see big value in vision insurance: 84 percent offer it.

Voluntary vision coverage is typically a popular product.

“We use it as a recruiting tool,” Spencer Peery, business manager at Bailey Lauerman & Associates, an advertising agency in Lincoln and Omaha, Neb., told Benefits Selling in August.

“These benefits keep our employees healthier," he said. "They use dental and vision coverage almost as much as they use health insurance, for both prevention and general care.”

1. Life

The survey reports that life insurance is the most popular voluntary benefit: 94 percent of the 320 large employers surveyed offer it.

Individual life policies were some of the first voluntary products sold in the U.S. workplace. Today, 81 percent of individuals with life insurance have workplace coverage, while half of individuals look to their employer as the only source for coverage, according to a 2012 ING study.

But despite life insurance offerings at work, industry experts say most Americans are underinsured, if they're insured at all.

 

 


Don't forget about employee ACA communication due Oct. 1

Originally posted by Keith R. McMurdy August 16, 2013 on https://eba.benefitnews.com

With the recent employer mandate delay, some businesses might be overlooking the requirement to provide a notice to employees about health insurance coverage that may be available through a public exchange.

Employers must provide a notice to each employee, regardless of plan enrollment status or part-time or full-time status, by Oct. 1. The notice must be provided automatically, free of charge, and written in language that the average employee can understand. It may be provided by first class mail or electronically, if the requirements of the U.S. Department of Labor’s electronic disclosures safe harbor are met. It must also be provided to new hires — for 2014, the DOL will consider a notice delivered timely to a new employee if it’s provided within 14 days of the start date.

The notice must inform each employee of three things:

  • The existence of state or federal health insurance exchanges.
  • If the employer plan’s share of the total allowed costs of benefits provided under the plan is less than 60%, then the employee may be eligible for a federal premium tax credit if the employee purchases a qualified health plan through an exchange.
  • If the employee purchases a qualified health plan through an exchange, then the employee may lose the employer contribution to any health benefits plan offered by the employer; also, all or a portion of such contribution may be excludable from income for federal income tax purposes.

The good news is that employers don’t have to create the notices from scratch. The DOL published model notices, one for Employers Who Offer Health Plans, and one for Employers that Do Not Offer Health Plans. If employers have questions about how to complete the forms, this is an opportunity for an employee benefit adviser to step in and provide guidance. Above all, advisers should remind employers that they need to issue them. Just because employers have a year to wait on the coverage mandate does not mean they can ignore other compliance rules like this one.

 


Should exchanges be part of your company's plan?

Originally posted August 06, 2013 by Justyn Harkin on https://ebn.benefitnews.com

Although considering the new health care exchanges may have seemed radical a few weeks ago, now that everybody gets to drop ten and punton the employer mandate penalty in 2014, the idea may not be so strange.

Sure, migrating employees to the exchanges isn’t right for every organization. If the move would upset your workforce, then keeping your current group plan is probably best. But if employees would view exchange offerings as equal or better than what they current have, then there could be plenty of upsides.

If you think the exchanges would be better than what you have now for both your company and your employees, or even if you just want to get a leg up on communications (and believe me, that’s never a bad idea), then you and your employees have three options — public exchanges, private exchanges (fully insured), private exchanges (self-insured).

Which one might be best for your organization? Let's see.

Public exchanges

One of the most attractive ideas about moving to a public exchange has to be handing over the considerable financial and administrative burdens for running your company’s health benefits.

For some organizations, the move might be cheaper than what they are doing now. Even when you factor in the likely, eventual activation of the $2,000-per-employee fine for not providing insurance, you could still be paying less than what you would if you were covering premiums.

Of course, sending employees to public exchanges isn’t necessarily a slam-dunk move. Your workforce could straight-up riot if you tell them you’re cutting health benefits, and even if you raise salaries (oh, hello there, higher payroll taxes) to help them cover the costs of buying their own insurance, your recruiting efforts could take a hit if your competitors keep their health benefits.

Private exchanges with fully insured plans

Perhaps the biggest advantage of using a private exchange is the ability to shift some of the rising costs of health care to employees and give them the ability to control their spending.

In a private exchange, employees get an allowance from their employer that can be used to buy insurance. The idea is that giving employees control of the purchasing decision takes some of the heat off of your company. After all, if the cost of health care rises, that’s not your fault?

So what’s the downside to this type of exchange? Well, in the worse-case scenario it’s a less healthy, less productive workforce. Because employees will be making purchasing decisions, they may choose lower premiums over better coverage, and that can contribute to poorer health and higher rates of absenteeism.

Private exchanges with self-insured plans

The last of your exchange options are private exchanges with self-insured plans. Compared with the types of plans offered on public exchanges and private exchanges with fully insured plans, the plans available on private exchanges with self-insured plans can seem very attractive employees — generally lower premiums, more generous plan features, and more in-network doctors — but they will be more expensive.

The self-insured private exchange option might be slightly more expensive than what you could do with a fully insured private exchange, that’s true, but the available plans would be more oriented toward long-term health.

Still, using self-insured plans means you’ll have to assume all the risk and pay for all your employees’ claims. Also your employees will become customers of the private exchange insurance companies, and that means you won’t have the same influence (over the companies or choices) that you would otherwise have.

How will you spend the bonus year?

Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Mark J. Mazur’s July 3 announcement might have seemed like the best health care reform–related thing to happen to employers all year.

If you take the “transition year” at face value, meaning the mandatory employer and insurer reporting requirements are being postponed, then you have the perfect chance to carefully consider your company’s next moves.

Maybe you’ll decide to take the plunge. Perhaps you’ll rule out the exchanges altogether. You might even decide to let other companies test the waters first so you can be prepared later on.

No matter what path you chose, though, the most important thing is taking the time to make the best decision for your company and your employees. And then communicate that decision in a clear and engaging way. Good luck!


House-passed bill would bar IRS enforcement of health care reform law

Originally posted August 2, 2013 by Jerry Geisel by https://www.businessinsurance.com

The House of Representatives approved legislation Friday that would bar the U.S. Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service from enforcing the health care reform law.

The Republican-backed measure cleared the House on a 232-185 vote.

Under the bill, H.R. 2009, regulators would be unable to enforce key health care reform law provisions such as the requirement — delayed last month by the Treasury Department to 2015 — that employers with at least 50 full-time employees offer coverage or pay a fee and a 2014 requirement that individuals enroll in a health plan or pay a fine.

The bill — as has been the case with other measures approved by the House to repeal all or part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — is unlikely to be taken up by the Senate, where Democrats hold the majority.

Even if the Senate were to pass the House measure, President Barack Obama would veto it.

The legislation “would raise health insurance premiums and increase the number of uninsured Americans and represents another attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, with no plan to replace it or policy to improve it,” the administration said in a statement by the Office of Management and Budget earlier this week.

Instead of attempting to repeal the reform law, lawmakers should work with the administration on an agenda to provide greater economic security to the middle class, the administration said in the statement.

Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., who introduced the latest House measure to repeal the law, said earlier that “we ought to take this common sense step to take the IRS out of health care.”