The landmark legislation known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), signed into law in 2010, affects a wide range of institutions in the United States in some way. It imposes healthcare-related requirements on health plans, health insurers and employers.

In addition to imposing various tax increases to increase revenue, the PPACA uses a carrot and stick approach to ensure compliance with its provisions, offering tax credits for compliance and imposing tax penalties for non-compliance. This course will review the principal provisions of the law and will examine its tax impact on individuals and businesses.

In so doing, it will consider the:

• Coverage-related provisions of the PPACA addressing –
  • Plan grandfathering pursuant to which health coverage in force at the time of the law’s passage may be continued
  • The prohibition of pre-existing condition exclusions
  • The proscription of lifetime and annual benefit limits
  • The limitation of health coverage rescissions
  • The requirement for certain patient protections
  • The requirement that plans covering children extend child coverage until age 26
• Tax credits available to small businesses to encourage them to sponsor employee health plans
• Shared responsibility for certain large employers to provide employee health coverage and the tax penalties imposed for noncompliance
• Various personal income tax changes affecting taxpayers
• Tax credits authorized to help individuals maintain minimum essential coverage.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, you should be able to:

• List the principal healthcare provisions of the PPACA
• Identify the tax credits for which small businesses may be eligible when sponsoring employee health plans
• Recognize the shared responsibility requirements for applicable large employers regarding employee health coverage
• Compute the tax penalties imposed under the PPACA for a large employer’s failure to meet the applicable shared responsibility requirements
• Calculate the tax credits designed to help ensure that individuals are able to maintain minimum essential coverage.