Banyan Administrators have been providing us with beneficial information about several different aspects of the Health Care Reform and how it affects us. Over the next months and years, employers will be faced with numerous changes, many of which require regulatory clarification. Banyan will continue to keep us up to date and on target with decisions that affect our plans. Over this past week, Banyan has provided answers to many questions regarding how the Health Care Reform Cadillac Tax will affect you. We are sure you will find the following information from Banyan Administrators valuable. This article is part 2 of 2. If you missed last week’s article, click here.
Health Care Reform Cadillac Tax
What You Need to Know Now About: The Cadillac Tax
Another component of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) commonly referred to as the Health Care Reform Act is a tax on benefit-rich or “gold-plated” insurance plans. This tax is often referred to as “The Cadillac Tax” and, although it is not scheduled to go into effect until 2018 and may see several revisions in design before then, some plan sponsors are beginning to develop strategies to address it.
1. I sponsor a grandfathered health plan. Am I subject to The Cadillac Tax?
Yes. The Cadillac Tax is applicable to both grandfathered and non-grandfathered health plans.
2. Are there any exceptions for certain groups of employees such as collectively bargained union groups?
During initial debate about implementing The Cadillac Tax for 2013, there was debate about excluding federal employees and union groups from the provision; however that was abandoned when the implementation of the tax was delayed to 2018. At this time, union groups will also be subject to the tax in 2018.
There are some adjustments to the current 2018 Annual Value Amounts for certain groups. For example, insurance plans that have an above average population of older workers or female workers may have higher 2018 Annual Value Amounts based on a still to be determined formula. The reasoning is that the higher cost to insure these groups is due to risk factors and not to benefit-rich plan designs.
This line of reasoning is also responsible for higher 2018 Annual Value Amounts for retirees and workers in high-risk professions (firefighters, coal miners, etc.). The amounts for these professions are set at $11,850 for an individual and $30,950 for a family plan.
3. How many plan sponsors might be subject to The Cadillac Tax?
Initially, when the tax was scheduled to go into effect in 2013 the CBO estimated that by 2016 19% of all workers would be subject to The Cadillac Tax.
With the delayed implementation date of 2018, several studies and estimates have been performed and assuming just an average annual trend of 8%, the projection is in the range of 40%-60% of all plan sponsors will trigger The Cadillac Tax. Of course, all these projections assume the plan sponsor does not make any significant plan design changes like increased deductibles and other employee out-of-pocket costs and that the details of The Cadillac Tax as currently constituted for 2018 remain unchanged. (continue reading…)
