The Affordable Care Act requires an employee to have a minimum amount of health coverage starting in 2014, and requires an employer to offer affordable health coverage to its employees.  But how do these health mandates apply to the employee’s spouse and dependents?  Recent IRS regulations fill in several pieces of this puzzle.

Several provisions of the Affordable Care Act work together to expand health coverage.  An individual mandate requires most individuals to maintain minimum essential health coverage or pay a penalty.  In order to encourage employers to offer health coverage to their employees, an employer mandate imposes an excise tax on large employers that fail to offer affordable, minimum value coverage to their full-time employees.  If a lower-income individual is not eligible for affordable coverage from another source and purchases individual health insurance, the individual receives a refundable premium tax credit that helps make the coverage affordable.  Although these provisions are related, each provision applies in a different way to an employee’s family members.  The family coverage rules have important implications for the design and administration of employer group health plans.Continue Reading IRS Clarifies Family Health Coverage Mandates