House Appropriations Committee Approves Draft Bill Affecting ACA Funding For 2018

On July 18, 2017, the House Appropriations Committee approved a draft Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill for 2018 (Committee Report). The bill includes a number of provisions relevant to the Affordable Care Act. It would:

• Require the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish a website providing detailed information as to grants provided through the Prevention and Public Health Fund;
• Require HHS to provide information on all full-time equivalent employees and contractors who have been engaged in implementing the ACA since its enactment, subject to certain exceptions;
• Require HHS to provide information regarding expenditures for the exchanges since the enactment of the ACA, as well as enrollment information for the exchanges;
• Prohibit the use of funds from the Medicare trust funds or the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ program management account for funding risk corridor obligations;
• Provide a report on how the ACA’s preventive services requirement will impact eligibility for discretionary HHS programs;
• Transfer funds appropriated under the Prevention and Public Health Fund to other specified purposes as identified in the committee report;
• Prohibit the use of Prevention and Public Health Funds for lobbying;
• Prohibit user fees to fund the exchanges;
• Prohibit funding for the navigator program;
• Prohibit funding for implementing the ACA, except for certain provisions pertaining to Medicare rate-setting and the Medicaid drug discount program;
• Rescind $15 million in funding for the Independent Payment Advisory Board; and,
• Rescind $323 million that apparently still remains from the preexisting condition high-risk pool.

To become law, the appropriations proposed bill would have to be enacted by the whole House and then be approved by the Senate, or be reconciled with Senate appropriations language. An appropriations bill in the Senate is subject to a filibuster. It is very unlikely, therefore, that all of the House provisions will appear in final legislation. It is much more likely that the government will continue to function under a continuing resolution.

The IRS has posted tax year 2017 schema and business rule packages for employers and insurers filing forms 1094-B, 1094-C, 1095-B, and 1095-C. The pages are quite similar to those used in 2016.

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