Most employers won’t allow FSA rollovers until 2014; trouble may lie ahead for HIX; and one infographic explains healthcare.gov’s problems: 3 things you need to know this week in employee benefits

Employers put FSA rollovers on the backburner until 2014

Most employers were in the thick of a busy and complex open enrollment season when the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury announced late last month that the federal agencies had changed rules governing flexible spending accounts to allow accountholders to rollover up to $500 from year to year, thus eliminating the long-standing use-it-or-lose-it rule.

For 2013, it appears that most employers maintained the status quo—allowing a spend-down grace period for FSAs or not allowing rollovers—rather than decide on the fly whether to adopt the new regulations.

Looking ahead to 2014, a new survey from FSA administrator Alegus reveals that more than half of employers will adopt the new rules for 2014 FSA plans, according to administrators participating in the survey; another 22% predict that 75% of employers will adopt the rollover rule for 2014 FSAs.

Alegeus estimates that two-thirds of existing FSA plans offer a grace period and one-in-four FSA participants forfeit money at the end of the plan year or grace period.

What the exchanges giveth, will Congress taketh away?

There is a mixed bag of news this week related to the Affordable Care Act. On a PR-positive (albeit administratively cumbersome) note, the White House announced a proposal to allow Americans to keep their health plans if those benefits were terminated for not meeting ACA minimum standards.

Other good ACA news, as reported in the L.A. Times, is that some state-run exchanges are operating much more smoothly than the problematic healthcare.gov. California, for example, is on track to hit enrollment targets for 2014 and accounts for one-third of the nation’s exchange enrollments thus far. Exchanges established in Connecticut and Kentucky are outpacing their enrollment estimates, and enrollment in Minnesota during the second half of October is triple the rate of the first half, according to the paper.

On the flip side, though, is a bill recently introduced in the Senate by Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) that would require—rather than recommend—insurers to not only maintain the terminated plans, but to do so in perpetuity.

Although this might be viewed by some as positive change, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out that if approved, the measure would allow healthier Americans to remain outside the exchange system. Thus, it would significantly sicken the exchange pool, trigger sticker-shock for 2015 plans and reduce the long-term viability of the exchange marketplace.

This week’s hidden gem: Why healthcare.gov won’t work, in one infographic

NPR’s tech blog “All Tech Considered,” has published a smoking gun of sorts in the form of an infographic created by McKinsey & Co. that illustrates the reasons for the botched launch of healthcare.gov, and why the site continues to experience problems.

McKinsey is the consulting firm that was hired by the Obama administration to conduct an independent analysis of the healthcare.gov system and determine the site’s readiness for its Oct. 1 rollout.

Written in March, some seven months prior to the healthcare.gov launch, the McKinsey team noted among other conclusions that the time taken to define site requirements was too long, while testing time was too short. The report also points out that rather than stage the rollout in phases, healthcare.gov was launched “at scale” in all 50 states on the same day.