Automatic enrollment requirement delayed pending further guidance

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently promised to issue guidance about automatic enrollment in employer-sponsored health plans—sometime in the next three years. Automatic enrollment is a mandate imposed by last year’s health care reform law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The mandate will apply to employers of 200 or more employees and requires the employer to automatically enroll new full time employees in any company-sponsored health plan and to continue enrollment of current full time employees.  In a fifth set of FAQs, the DOL states that the effective date of the automatic enrollment requirement is delayed indefinitely until further guidance can be developed. This is expected to occur sometime before 2014. In addition, the DOL plans to issue guidance explaining which employees are considered to be full time for purposes of this mandate. Vigilant will update its members when additional guidance is issued.