Exchanges

There is some support among employers to increase the cap on H-1B visas, allowing more foreign workers to be temporarily employed in the U.S., yet the majority remains opposed to issuing more of the visas.

For the first time, brokers and agents will be eligible to receive continuing education credits through the training, which is required to eligible to sell on the federal marketplace.

Three Republican senators have sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services expressing concern for the “lack of oversight for more than $1 billion in federal grants” given to state-based marketplaces.

State-based marketplaces were overall quite successful in retaining enrollees, however, a large number of consumers shopping within the marketplace during 2015 open enrollment decided to switch plans based on the price of services offered.

While states are starting to realize they need to step up and help private sector employers better prepare their employees for retirement, Americans continue to fall short in meeting their economic needs in retirement.

As pressure mounts on state-run public health insurance exchanges to be financially self-sufficient in time for 2016, consumer operated and oriented plans created under the Affordable Care Act face the same challenge. And with two recent troubling developments in the CO-OP space, there are renewed questions about the long-term viability of these nonprofit entities.

The IRS continues to seek industry input on the Affordable Care Act’s excise tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health plans.

Paid sick leave seems to be gaining traction in some parts of the United States, but it continues to face a lot of resistance.

Just last week, the DOL provided guidance about people treated as independent contractors, but who may really be your employees. That is just part of the trend. Another way you may have “extra” employees is through joint employment, most commonly through use of a staffing agency.

Commentary: Employers face an uphill battle in classifying a worker as an independent contractor due to DOL guidance that defines ‘employee’ so broadly that such a classification should only be reserved for a narrow subset of workers.