September 10, 2018
Dear Member of Congress,
This week, the House is expected to vote on H.R. 3798, the “Save American Workers Act of 2018.” The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC) urges you to support this legislation. ERIC is the only national trade association that advocates exclusively for federal, state, and local public policies that support large employers sponsoring health, retirement, and compensation plans.
This bill, based on several pieces of legislation that have been approved by the House Ways and Means Committee, would do the following:
- Restore the 40-hour work week standard for the purposes of calculations under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) shared responsibility “employer mandate” requirements;
- Grant relief to employers on employer mandate penalties for the period of January 1, 2015 through December 31, 2018 – a period during which the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have failed to comply with ACA requirements to protect employers’ due process rights in the mandate penalty process;
- Delay the ACA’s “Cadillac” excise tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health insurance for an additional year, until January 1, 2023;
- Repeal the ACA tax on indoor tanning services; and
- Provide limited relief related to ACA reporting requirements, specifically regarding the IRS Form 1095-B requirements on health insurance companies and some small businesses – staff has committed to ongoing work to provide relief to large employers regarding Form 1095-C as well.
As we have previous reported to Congress, the Cadillac tax is an existential threat to employer-sponsored health benefits. Delaying, defanging, and repealing the Cadillac tax is ERIC’s top health care priority on behalf of our member companies. As such, H.R. 3798 is an important step in the right direction. Furthermore, because of numerous failures on the part of IRS and HHS to comply with the ACA’s clear requirements related to employer mandate penalties, businesses should not face penalties unless and until these blatant violations are remedied.
As such, should H.R. 3798 come to a vote, ERIC urges members to vote YES. We look forward to working with Congress to enact commonsense relief for employers, workers, and retirees on the ACA taxes and mandates.
Sincerely,
James Gelfand
Senior Vice President, Health Policy