The FEHBlog nearly fell off his chair when he read this morning that the omnibus appropriations / tax extenders package also places a one year moratorium on the onerous health insurer tax for 2017.  The Affordable Care Act is a large scale income redistribution scheme. One of its craziest features was to impose a massive tax on health insurers which principally raises premiums for small business, people buying coverage in the exchanges and FEHBP enrollees.   Prof. Timothy Jost provides a more detailed review of the ACA provisions of the package here.

Today, the House approved the tax extenders bill on a bipartisan vote as the Hill reports.  Tomorrow, the House takes up the omnibus appropriations bill and send the package over to the Senate which is expected to pass the package right away so Congress can head home. The omnibus appropriations bill includes the protections for September 11, 2001, first responders which the third piece of must pass legislation for this month.

Yesterday, the Internal Revenue Service released more ACA guidance which really does not impact the FEHBP.  Prof. Jost review the Service’s actions here.