H.R. 3522, Employee Health Care Protection Act of 2014

As ordered reported by the House Committee on Energy & Commerce on July 30, 2014, with modifications reflected in Rules Committee Print 113-56 and an amendment (HR3522-RCP-AMD_01.XML) posted on the website of the Committee on Rules on September 8, 2014

H.R. 3522, as amended, would allow insurers to offer group health insurance plans that they offered on any date during 2013 until December 31, 2018, regardless of whether the coverage they provide complies with the market and benefit rules that took effect on January 1, 2014, under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Groups would be allowed to enroll in such plans even if they had not previously been covered by them, and people enrolled in those plans would be considered to be in compliance with the individual mandate imposed by the ACA, which requires most residents of the United States to have “minimum essential coverage” (as defined in that act) beginning in 2014. However, insurers would not be allowed to offer such coverage through health insurance exchanges.

CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation estimate that enacting H.R. 3522 would increase federal revenues by a total of $1.25 billion over the fiscal years 2015 to 2024. About $400 million of that increase in revenues would be off-budget (Social Security payroll tax collections are classified as off-budget).

Pay-as-you-go procedures apply to H.R. 3522 because enacting the legislation would affect revenues. H.R. 3522 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.