text: Nancy Pelosi | Recruiterpoet's Blog
  Category Archives: Nancy Pelosi	March 30, 2010	Hewitt Associates Webcast/Web Conference on Health Care Reform – Recorded access for those that missed the event
  1 comment	| posted in Health Care, Health Care Reform, Hewitt Associates, Nancy Pelosi, Obama, Webcast	March 22, 2010	House Passes Historic Health Care Reform – Summary of Bill
  By Recruiterpoet - Professionalism With Flare	Direct Link from Hewitt.com:
  http://www.hewittassociates.com/Intl/NA/en-US/KnowledgeCenter/LegislativeUpdates/LegislativeUpdatesDetail.aspx?cid=8258
  Congress made history on Sunday, March 21, 2010, when the House passed both the Senate-passed health care reform bill and changes to the Senate bill embodied in a separate budget reconciliation bill.
  The Senate bill, which is estimated to cost $940 billion over the next ten years, would create state health insurance exchanges for the purchase of health insurance coverage and would insure an additional 31 million currently uninsured Americans. Some of the high impact items of the Senate bill for employers are as follows:
  Employers would be subject to a "free rider" penalty, under which employers with at least 50 full-time employees would pay a penalty if a full-time employee receives a federal subsidy to purchase health insurance in the exchanges. The penalty would be assessed if the employer does not offer health coverage at all, if the employee is offered coverage that is considered "unaffordable," or the plan has an actuarial value of less than 60 percent.
  A 40 percent excise tax would be imposed on the aggregate value of health coverage offered by employers if that value exceeds a certain threshold.
  Employers that offer health care coverage and make a contribution toward the cost of the health care coverage would have to provide "free choice vouchers" to qualified employees for the purchase of qualified health plans through the exchanges.
  Employers would be required to report the annual cost of health care coverage received by their employees.
  Employers with more than 200 employees would have to automatically enroll new full-time employees in health care coverage (subject to any waiting period authorized by law).
  A $5 billion fund would be created to finance a temporary reinsurance program to help employers offset the costs of expensive health claims for retirees ages 55–64 and their families.
  Annual contributions to employer-provided health care flexible spending accounts (FSAs) would be capped at $2,500 (indexed) and reimbursement of over-the-counter medicines would be limited to those that have a prescription.
  Employers receiving the Medicare Part D Retiree Drug Subsidy would have to include the payment in income for tax purposes.
  An additional Medicare tax of 0.9 percent would be imposed on individuals receiving wages in excess of $200,000 (single taxpayers) or $250,000 (couples). The tax would be imposed only on the employee portion of the Medicare tax, not on the employer portion.
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