Health Care Thread

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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Question for you guys. A friend of mine's company is claiming that the ACA placed restrictions on how much the company itself is allowed to contribute to their employees FSA's plans based on how much the employee has contributed. I understand that there are new limitations placed on maximum allowable contributions per year ($2500 now, $3000 if your company allows the $500 rollover) however what his company is claiming is something different. Something I haven't been able to verify and it sounds like BS to me.

Here is the verbage from the company regarding changes to his FSA plan (important part in bold):

*Due to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, the maximum amount that can be elected for the FSA in 2014 is $2,500. That is a reduction of $500 from our former plan maximum of $3,000. If you qualify for Medical Reimbursement, you still may contribute the full $2,500 and the company contribution of up to $700 will be added to that amount.

**New for 2013 and forward, the Affordable Care Act allows participants to roll over up to $500 to the immediately following plan year. The Act offsets this great new feature by restricting the amount the company can contribute to the plan on your behalf in 2014 and beyond.The company may still contribute up to $700 to the plan; however if you elect to contribute less than $500 to the plan, the company may only contribute up to a maximum of $500. If you contribute more than $500, the company can match your contributions up to $700. This new restriction is a direct result of the Affordable Care Act and its regulations. This is NOT our decision.not only does it complicate what was a fairly simple plan, but it also deprives those that don't contribute to the FSA of up to $200 of non-taxable benefit.
Is that true?
 

iannis

Musty Nester
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Sounds like bullshit but it's one of those things that is just retarded enough to be true.

I want to pretend like I don't understand why there would be a federally mandated cap on corporate responsibility for matching funds but
 

BoldW

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Sounds like they should combine FSAs and HSAs, without the need for a high deductible plan (i.e. anyone can have one). Having a medical account that rolls over and is tax-free would be one of the greatest things...and there shouldn't be a limit unless it's really, really high. /shrug
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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Could they make that verbage any more confusing? The first sentence makes it sound like all he would need to contribute is $350 to get the $700 from his company. The "clarification" sentence matches what his company says though, kinda, I don't see any mention of $700 being the maximum amount allowable, unless they set the limit for their FSA contributions to a maximum of $1400?
 

Vaclav

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It's correct from my understanding - there's no upper limit though, other than what the employer sets however. But basically for HSA's there has to be an equal level of employee involvement for the lower tiers unless I've misunderstood things.

Not that I'd heard of any employers not 1:1'ing HSA's myself - his employer giving the contribution with no employee involvement is a rarity from what I've seen.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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FSA contributions do indeed have an upper limit (it's $2500). As for 1:1 contribution "laws"? I had never heard of that. Every single one of the HDHP (high deductible health plans) I've ever been a part of have had my employer contributing between $500 and $1500 into an HRA or HSA account without me having to contribute a single penny.

But that wasn't the point, it seems absurd to me that the ACA would limit an employer from being able to do that with an FSA. I guess the defense of that legislature is to prevent excessive healthcare spending on the broader spectrum to cut costs for the system as a whole.
 

karma

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On a side note, BCBSNC did in fact agree to let subscribers keep the plans that were cancelled this year due to non compliance. I was shocked.

Having a year to prepare for the rate increases will make things much easier budget wise.
 

Picasso3

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What is your situation and how much do you anticipate your rates increasing? Sorry if i missed it.
 

Picasso3

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I tried to sign up a few weeks ago and got stuck at identity verification. It's still pending. Pretty appalling how terrible this rollout has gone when they knew they were going to be under so much heat. I'd like to see BARAK HUSSEIN OBLABLAMA go down the line smacking people down.
 

Grim1

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Question for you guys. A friend of mine's company is claiming that the ACA placed restrictions on how much the company itself is allowed to contribute to their employees FSA's plans based on how much the employee has contributed. I understand that there are new limitations placed on maximum allowable contributions per year ($2500 now, $3000 if your company allows the $500 rollover) however what his company is claiming is something different. Something I haven't been able to verify and it sounds like BS to me.

Here is the verbage from the company regarding changes to his FSA plan (important part in bold):



Is that true?
It's probably true. If it wasn't then any lawyer could sue your company for much more than the piddling amount that they are "saving" because of ObamaCare's mandates. Business learned a long time ago not to fuck with regulations that could cost them millions in lawsuits. Still, it's worth double checking on, you may win the sue-stake lottery if your company's leaders are dumb enough to fuck you over in that way.

More than likely though you are just another victim of the disaster that is ObamaCare.

Pelosi should have read the bill so she could find out how much it fucked the rest of us over. But frankly, even if she had, she would not have cared. She is the epitome of everything that has gone wrong with the Democrat party.
 

karma

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What is your situation and how much do you anticipate your rates increasing? Sorry if i missed it.
Assuming you were asking me, we had one of those "terrible" HDHP plans with an HSA . It worked great for us, we covered our annual physicals out of pocket (for less than one months premiums on any of the plans BCBS offfered) and put money into the HSA in case something serious ever happened.

We were scheduled for pretty close to a 500 dollar a month premium rate increase. We do not qualify for any subsidies. This gives us one more year to pay off the business loan my wife took, then life will be good!
 

Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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My hdhp included routine checkups. Yours must have been pure catastrophic only. I'm still surprised in 500 increase. Why don't you have insurance through a company? If you have your own business have you looked at going through SHOP
 

karma

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My wife is self employed, I did not go back to work when our company lost the govt contract we had, now I pretty much help her when she needs it doing whatever needs doing. We are currently looking into moving health insurance through the company. Dont know much about it so have been trying to research company plans. We only have 5 employees total (not including me) and 2 of them have insurance through spouses.

The 500 dollar increase shocked us lol. Place is paid for next year so the year was a nice grace period.
 

Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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I think employers under 10 fte get 40% tax credit on premiums paid 2014-2015 and under the shop you'll be part of a much larger negotiation group. It'll take some legwork but it seems like it'd be better.
 

tad10

Elisha Dushku
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Is that true?
Probably.

But it doesn't matter. Most people on employer plans (particularly if your employer is not one of the Fortune 500) will lose it after the elections next year when the employer mandate triggers. Most small to medium sized employers can't afford Obamacare compliant plans so they have to drop them and tell their employees to go to the exchanges - also pensioners.

The "5%" losing their "substandard" plans is going to become the "50%+" losing their plans.
 

Vaclav

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Care to make a wager on that? We can find someone to escrow the funds until we find out the final results. I'd match anything on it being below 50% - I like free money.