Healthcare Compliance Inc.

ACA Intentional Disregard | Poll: Obamacare More Popular Than Ever The Affordable Care Act wins 55% support among the public for its highest rating since becoming law nearly a decade ago, according to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll released Friday. Kaiser said the clear majority of support is the highest in more than 100 polls the nonprofit health foundation has conducted. The ACA was signed into law in 2010 by President Barack Obama and has expanded he...alth insurance coverage to more than 20 million Americans. The recent uptick reflects strong support among Democrats, 85% of whom now express favorable views, Kaiser said in its analysis. A narrow majority (53%) of independents also view the law favorably. While most Republicans (77%) still hold unfavorable views towards the ACA, the poll suggests that Republican voters have largely moved on from efforts to repeal the ACA and now rank opposition to a single-payer government health plan like Medicare-for-all among their top health priorities.

ACA Reporting Service | The Fight Over 'Medicare For All' Is Only Beginning (CNN)Less than two months after the 2017 Republican push to kill Obamacare perished overnight on the Senate floor, more than a third of the Democratic caucus gathered in a much smaller room on Capitol Hill to take turns making the case for Sen. Bernie Sanders' new "Medicare for All" bill. The Vermont independent had boosted single-payer health care plans before, but it had been a lonely enterprise. A ...previous iteration attracted no co-sponsors. This time, though, he was ringed by colleagues -- among them, four of his future Democratic presidential rivals: Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Cory Booker of New Jersey. The failed GOP coup united Democrats, for a least few heady weeks that summer, across ideological lines. Come 2018, House Republicans would pay dearly for their efforts, as Democrats campaigning on promises to protect and grow government-backed health care swept into the majority.

ACA Management | The Democratic Party's 'Medicare for All' Divide Could Be The Signature 2020 Debate (CNN)While "Medicare for all" quickly became one of the top policy issues of the 2020 race for the Democratic presidential nomination, polling doesn't show a clear preference for a government-run health care program over the current system. Many Americans don't really understand Medicare for all, and when they do, they're on the fence about some key issues. But, that confusion... is particularly significant when it comes to the 2020 primary as Democrats are torn about what their party's nominee should focus on, with some big ideological divisions throughout the party, that could be cause for in-party fighting. "I think it will be a divisive issue in the primary," said Mollyann Brodie, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. "Especially if people start hearing about and learning about what it might mean, there's an issue of disruption. [P]eople get really anxious when you start talking about changing their current health arrangements. ... All of a sudden you see this tendency for reversion to the status quo. So, I think that that is a challenge that many of the Democratic candidates are going to have to nuance and pay attention to in the primary." Medicare for all was the among the first big issues that candidates worked to address in 2020, having already been a main topic of conversation for Sen. Bernie Sanders from 2016. Sen. Kamala Harris made waves at her CNN Town Hall in April when she said she supported the proposal, something that would entail the public getting rid of their private insurance (since then, her campaign advisers have said she would be open to letting private insurance stick around).

ACA Reporting Services | What Happens If the Affordable Care Act Is Struck Down? The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, has existed largely on the edge of a cliff since President Donald Trump entered the White House. While Trump has thus far failed to fulfill his campaign promise of repealing and replacing former President Barack Obama’s signature health care plan, he appeared to get a second wind last week. The Justice Department sided with a federal judge in Texa...s, who ruled in December that the law’s individual mandate was unconstitutional and that the rest of the law was therefore invaliddespite the Supreme Court previously upholding the law in 2012. The Texas ruling calls into question one of the key components of the ACA: protection for those with pre-existing conditions. But Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney sought to assuage the concerns of those with such pre-existing conditions over the weekend, while speaking on ABC’s This Week.

Spot Audit On Previous ACA Filings | Annual Tradition Continues - 2018 Employee Statement Deadline Extended along with Good Faith Effort Standard On November 29, 2018 the IRS provided every employer an automatic extension from the deadline to furnish the Form 1095-C statements to individuals. Additionally, the IRS extended the good faith efforts standard to the 2018 Forms. Both of these items are beneficial to employers but also will make the IRS less forgiving of late filers.... Notice 2018-94 provides transition relief by extending the due date for the Form 1095-C statements that were to be furnished to individuals by January 31, 2019 to March 4, 2019. Importantly, the permissive extension discussed in the instructions to the Form 1095-C no longer applies to the individual statement deadline. Therefore, the March 4, 2019 deadline for furnishing the Form 1095-C statements is now a hard deadline. The Notice states the Service will not even respond to employers requesting an extension beyond the March 4, 2019 deadline. Similar to last year, Notice 2018-94 does not provide an extension for the Forms 1094-C and 1095-C which are to be provided to the IRS. The deadline to file the Forms 1094-C and 1095-C with the IRS is February 28, 2019 if the employer is filing on paper. If an employer is filing electronically, the deadline is April 1, 2019. An employer can still complete a Form 8809 to receive an automatic 30 day extension. Questions? [email protected] 800-325-1333 Copyright 2018, HCI. Revised 12/3/18 Notice 2018-94 also extends the good faith efforts standard to the 2018 Forms so long as an employer complies with the new deadline for furnishing the statement to individuals and the old deadline for filing the Forms 1094-C and 1095-C with the IRS. The transition relief discussed in Notice 2018-94 only applies to the 2018 Forms.