Obamacare: Feds amend mid-year plan change rule

By Jared Bilski

There are very few exceptions to the rule that health plan participants can’t change their elections in the middle of the plan year. Up until recently, those exceptions didn’t account for Obamacare and the new insurance exchanges.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) just released Notice 2014-55, which essentially says that individuals can make mid-year changes and opt out of their employers’ health plan if:

• they have a reduction of hours that will drop them below a 30-hours-per-week average but are still eligible for coverage, and
• they want to drop employer coverage and purchase coverage on the exchange without having a period of either duplicate or no coverage.

However, in order for workers to “revoke” or drop out of their employers’ cafeteria plan, the plan must meet two conditions:

Click here to continue reading.