Accounting Issues: Accounting for Annual Health Insurance Fees On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and on March 30, 2010 the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act provided provisions to the PPACA. The laws focus on reform of the private health insurance market, provide better coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, improve prescription drug coverage in Medicare and extend the life of the Medicare Trust fund by at least 12 years (Washington). There are a number of provisions in the PPACA Act that will impact the accounting for many companies. Among those provisions are the following (US): * A new annual fee on pharmaceutical manufacturers …show more content…
For example, once a health insurer participates in the government program in 2011 that causes the health insurer to be subject to the fee in 2011. The profits in 2010 are solely used to calculate the fee; they do not obligate the health insurer to pay the fee.
It came to the Emerging Issues Task Force (EITF) attention that treatment for the annual fees should be treated like the fee for pharmaceutical manufacturers, which was also enacted in the Acts. People believe that the fee to be paid by health insurers is similar in substance to the fee to be paid by pharmaceutical manufacturers. Therefore, it has been requested that the final update include amendments to clarify that the accounting for both fees be the same. The table below compares the fees to be paid by pharmaceutical manufacturers and health insurers according to the Act (Fees).
| Pharmaceutical Manufacturer | Health Insurer | Purpose of the fee | To fund other provisions of the Act | To fund other provisions of the Act | Scope | Entities that sell branded prescription drugs to any government program specified in the Act | Entities that provide health insurance or administrative services for any U. S. health risk | Exclusions | Certain entities are excluded if their sales fall below a minimum threshold | Certain entities are excluded
The basic standards that was signed in law by President Obama that The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will cover all Americans to quality and affordable access care and necessary transformation within the health care system to cover costs. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has established that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is completely paid for and provides coverage for the American population. The primary transformation required by health insurances are shared responsibilities that the universal insurance market uses to eliminate discrimination practices in pre-existing condition, and having all Americans gaining coverage and affordable health care. Additionally, PPACA established health outcome improvement
The pharmaceutical and biotech industry agreed to contribute billions of dollars to healthcare reform. Having agreed early in political negotiations to contribute any-where from an estimated $80 billion to $105 billion in fees, rebates, and discounts to help move the legislation forward (Nussbaum, 2010). By agreeing to support healthcare reform with their money and policies, they were able to avoid issues that had plaques their industries for years such as drug importation and the ability to negotiate drug prices for Medicare D. In return, the pharmaceuticals and biotech firms would agree to discount drugs purchased by Medicare beneficiaries, affected by the doughnut hole, of the Part D program by 50 percent (Spatz, 2010). Congress also proposed additional government subsidies to be added to the discounts that would further shrink the gap; beneficiaries will pay 25 percent copayment
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) or Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a health care reform law that was voted into enactment in March of 2010 (Summary of the Affordable Care Act, 2013). The ACA consists of many different parts of which come from the Affordable Health Care for America Act, the Patient Protection Act various parts of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act and the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (Affordable Care Act Summary, n.d.). The original goal of the ACA was to cut back on the amount of dollars that was being spent on health care
Payment-determination bases are composed of three factors: cost, fee schedule, and price related. In a cost-payment basis the provider’s cost is the main method for payment (Cleverley, 2010). It is essentially a way to formulate fees for medical services. Prior to this practice, medical cost for medical services differ from state to state, which led to a variety of fee schedules. According to Brumley (2015), the varying fee schedules were inefficient for Medicare; therefore, to solve this issue Medicare linked fees to the actual cost of providing specific services. This became a component of the Section O of Title 42 in the code of Federal regulations; which sought to describe the different costs that can be included when it comes to calculating medical fees. The goal was to structure medical fees on a more cost-reasonable basis.
The Affordable Care Act, also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), and informally as Obama Care, was signed into law by President Barack Obama on 23rd March, 2010. The aim of the Act is a health care law aimed at improving the health care system of the United States by widening health coverage to more Americans, as well as protecting existing health insurance policy holders. According to the Obama Administration, those who already have health insurance will benefit from the legislation in various ways. For example, insurance companies will
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is the primary agency responsible for administering human services throughout the United States for people who are uninsured, isolated or medically vulnerable. It makes healthcare insurance more affordable through the Affordable Care act (ACA), Medicaid, Medicare, and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Implement and enforce public health safety, provide education and training, research, protect health care rights, and social services. It has a total of ten organizations that falls under its umbrella and offices and agencies that establish policies related to health care and legislation. It is instrumental in implementing laws and enforcing regulations that congress and executive branch mandates it to do.
Elections are just a month and a half away and Obamacare is still a highly heated debate. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), or what everyone has dubbed as Obamacare is a law that passed on June 28, 2012 to help reform healthcare. The law was introduced to provide affordable medical healthcare for everyone. The reform act doesn’t take away the State’s
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) this law is the landmark health reform legislation passed by the 111th Congress and was signed into law on March 23, 2010. The legislation includes a long list of health-related provisions that began taking effect in 2010 and will continue to be rolled out over the next four years. Provisions are intended to extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans, to implement measures that will lower health care cost and improve system efficiency, and to eliminate industry practices that include rescission and denial of
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) or Affordable Care Act (ACA) for short, is the new health care reform law in the United States of America and is often referred to by its nickname Obama Care. The Affordable Care Act was signed into law on March 23, 2010, to reform health care in the United States of America. ACA is a part of the Democratic Congress and President Obama’s efforts to reform the American health care system in order to provide health insurance to millions of uninsured American citizens and lower the expenses linked to health care. This new health care act is one that contains various enhancements to the quality and availability, as well as the affordability of health insurance. There have also been improvements with the new cost cutting measures, rules and regulations for both public and private health insurance companies along with the health care industry. Since the ACA was signed into law,
Another issue for fee-for-service system is that the providers set the prices for services. Patients were free to seek any type of healthcare services that they thought they required, while providers set the costs for each service that was billed to indemnity insurance companies (Shi & Singh, 2015). Insurance companies had little control on the types of services that the patient received and prices billed for each service. The fee-for-service model encourages excessive and unwarranted procedures and offers no incentives to utilize economical services (Smith, 2010). While the patients enjoy the freedom of being able to seek out their own services, over-utilization of expensive services on unnecessary and highly technical services increased healthcare costs.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly called the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or as it’s more affably known, Obamacare, was signed into law by President Barack Obama
Supporters of this policy include key federal and state stakeholders. The federal government through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) offers financial incentives for state policies that improve patient safety and reduce medical adverse events by implementing plans aimed at those issues. Those states that show improvement and reductions will receive 5-year grants. Also, The ACA has established accountable care organizations (ACOs) to manage the improvement of patient quality health care by offering hospitals financial incentives for hospital that report their performances. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is a federal agency responsible for the “health of all Americans” and human services provisions. It is also a large
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly called the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or colloquially Obamacare, is a federal statute signed into law on March 23 2010 (One Hundred Eleventh Congress, 2015). The Act has the unfortunate status of being the subject of of over 54 votes to either undo, amend or curtail the core provisions of the Act (O'Keefe, 2014). The global consulting group McKinsey has described the Act, along with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act amended (The Act, 2010). According Singhal (2011), “the U.S. health care reform sets in as the largest change in employer-provided health benefits in
The Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is a federal statute that was signed into law on March 23, 2010 by the Obama Administration. PPACA is more commonly referred to as the “ACA” or “Obamacare”. “A primary goal of the ACA was to increase access to health care services, largely through major expansions of state Medicaid programs in 2014 and beyond” (Wilk, 2014). The quest for health care reform began in the early 1900s and has become increasingly more debated throughout the century. The American Medical Association (AMA) began the journey and has been joined throughout the many decades by the American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL), President Roosevelt, President Truman, President Johnson, President Nixon, President Clinton, and President Obama, to name a few. The ACA demonstrates the need for the balance of power between state and federal government, as well as, how America has been handling the balance of power. This law has been in the making since 1989, conceptually beginning as the Individual Health Insurance Mandate through the Heritage Foundation. The individual health insurance mandate had been introduced by Republicans twice in 1993, in hopes of providing “a bill to provide comprehensive reform of the health care system of the United States” (Sen Chafee, 1993). The bill has been revised multiple times since 1993, budding into what is commonly called Obamacare.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly called Obama care, is a United States federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. Together with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, it represents the most significant government expansion and regulatory overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. Guaranteed issue will require policies to be issued regardless of any medical condition, and partial community rating will require insurers to offer the same premium to all applicants of the same age and geographical location without regard to gender or most pre-existing conditions. It requires that all individuals not covered by an employer sponsored health plan, Medicaid, Medicare or other public insurance programs, secure an approved private-insurance policy or pay a penalty. According to this system, a child would stay under their parents insurance until they turn twenty-six. The non-participating employers/ citizens, health