Zane Benefits Publishes New Information on HRAs and Minimum Value and Affordability
Park City, Utah (PRWEB) July 19, 2013 -- Today, Zane Benefits, the online solution to small business health insurance, published new information on HRAs and Minimum Value and Affordability.
According to Zane Benefits’ website, the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) released proposed guidance on the minimum value and affordability rules under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), including how health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) will be used in determining minimum value and affordability.
Employers with 50+ employees that also offer an integrated HRA should use these guidelines for calculating if their health coverage meets minimum value and affordability.
Here are four important PPACA concepts to be familiar with before understanding the proposed rules on minimum value and affordability:
1. Integrated HRA: An integrated HRA is a Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) that is offered alongside an employer-sponsored group health plan (usually a high-deductible plan).
2. Applicable Large Employer: PPACA defines an applicable large employer as 50+ full time equivalent (FTE) employees.
3. Minimum Value (MV): According to PPACA, a plan provides MV if the plan's share of the total allowed cost of benefits provided under the plan is at least 60%. In other words, it has an actuarial value (AV) of 60%.
4. Affordability: PPACA considers coverage affordable if an employee’s required premium contribution (for self-only coverage only) does not exceed 9.5% of household income.
The proposed rules address how employer contributions toward an integrated HRA will count toward the plan's minimum value and affordability.
For minimum value determination:
All HRA amounts that are made newly available under an integrated HRA for the current plan year are taken into account for MV purposes (assuming that the amounts may only be used for cost-sharing and not to pay insurance premiums).
For Affordability:
According to the proposed regulations, integrated HRAs can also count toward affordability. IRS says that for the purposes of determining affordability, HRA amounts that are made newly available under an integrated HRA for the current plan year are taken into account in determining affordability only if the employee may either use the HRA amounts only for premiums or choose to use the HRA amounts for either premiums or cost-sharing.
Click here to read full article.
About Zane Benefits
Zane Benefits was founded in 2006 to provide a revolutionized SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) administration platform ("ZaneHRA") for Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) and defined contribution health care. The flagship software provides a 100% paperless administration experience to small businesses and insurance professionals that want to offer better health benefits without a traditional group health insurance plan at lower costs. For more information about ZaneHRA, visit http://www.zanebenefits.com.
Christina Merhar, Zane Benefits, http://www.zanebenefits.com, 800-391-9209 6725, [email protected]
Share this article