The Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, signed into law on December 20, 2019, included several provisions affecting benefit plans. The bill repealed three major taxes and fees under the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—the Cadillac tax, the medical devices excise tax and the health insurance providers fee.
The law also extended the PCORI fees for an additional 10 years. These fees will continue to apply for the 2020-2029 fiscal years.
OVERVIEW
The ACA created the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to help patients, clinicians, payers and the public make informed health decisions by advancing comparative effectiveness research. The Institute’s research is funded, in part, by fees paid by health insurance issuers and sponsors of self-insured health plans.
Under the ACA, the PCORI fees were scheduled to apply to policy or plan years ending on or after Oct. 1, 2012, and before Oct. 1, 2019. The PCORI fee is calculated based on the average number of lives covered under the policy or plan. The fee amount is set by the IRS each year, and was $2.45 per covered life for 2018. The IRS has not released the indexed fee for plan years that end on or after October 1, 2019, and before October 1, 2020, or for subsequent plan years.
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