Covered California one of first HIXs to post consumer rankings; HRA and HSA contributions reach record highs; is ACA fee waiver actually an employer bribe? 3 things you need to know this week in emplo

Covered California blazes trail to post consumer rankings

Our home-state pride is bursting: Covered California is one of the first state insurance exchanges to provide consumers with comparative plan scores. Responses from member surveys yield star ratings to rank plans based on customer satisfaction as well as cost. The added information aims to help consumers purchase individual policies through the exchange.

Covered California now joins public exchanges in Colorado, Maryland and Connecticut in providing member feedback. According to a report from Kaiser Health News, insurers offering plans on the California exchange believed that “consumers deserved to know that their plans had performed well in customer satisfaction surveys and in the perceived quality of the care provided to patients.”

CC Executive Director Peter Lee calls the ratings “preliminary,” adding that the exchange intends to include more information about plan quality, clinical data and patient safety. More state programs are expected to provide customer ratings in the near future.

HRA and HSA contributions reach record highs

Employees are doing their darndest to contribute to your HSA and HRA plans, with numbers soaring in at $23.8 billion for contributions last year alone—with 71% participation for 2013, according to a new report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

However, employer contributions have cooled somewhat, EBRI finds. Among employees with employee-only coverage, employer contributions of $1,000 or more slipped from 28% to 23% in 2013.

According to EBRI, nearly 12 million adults were enrolled in an HRA or HSA during 2013, with an additional 9 million covered by an eligible plan. The national average balance is over $2,000 per account.

This week’s hidden gem: Is the ACA fee waiver actually an employer bribe?

The Obama administration is being accused of not only trying to bribe employers, but to bury the ploy within 227 pages of regulations.

According to Townhall.com, the president is “using the Internal Revenue Service to silence employers unhappy about Obamacare” by issuing rules under the Affordable Care Act that would waive the law’s $3,000 per employee penalty when an employee foregoes employer-sponsored coverage. The catch is that to get the waiver, employers must attest to the IRS, under penalty of perjury, that they haven’t laid off workers to meet mandate demands.

Is this a genuine overture by the president to help defray some of ACA’s costs to employers? Or, is it a bribe, as Townhall.com claims? Please weigh in with your comments. We’d love to hear from you!