WEEKLY EDITION JULY 18, 2018
The Trump administration recen tly issued a final rule expanding association health plans (AHPs) as a means of helping small
businesses and self - employed people get af fordable health coverage.
"The Trump administration hopes to level the playing field between large companies and small businesses by expanding
access to association health plans," Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta told reporters on Tuesday. "This expansion will offer
millions of Americans more affordable coverage options." Acosta said government forecasts estimate the rules will allow as
many as 4 million people to gain coverage through AHPs, including 400,000 who are currently uninsured.
The final rule broa dens the definition of an employer under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) to allow
more groups to form AHPs as an alternative to the Affordable Care Act health exchanges. ERISA is the federal law governing
health benefits offered by larg e employers. Under the final rule, AHPs may be sold nationally, in groups of states or in a single
state, according to the Labor Department. States will continue to regulate them, although the American Society for Associatio n
Executives (ASAE) and others, including the PSAI, had pushed for AHPs to be exempt from state regulation.
Marijuana: HR Policy
Issues for Portable
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Trump Admin Expands A HPs
Association Health Plans move f orward
By Karleen Kos, PSAI Executive Director
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[ Note: In the July 4 issue of Association
Insight part 1 of this two part series covered
the legalization of marijuana use and its
impact on the portable sanitation industry.
Read it here .]
The country is going to pot! This is not a
political comment – it's a statement of fact
regarding the proliferation of laws legalizing
marijuana in the US. Oklahoma and Vermont
are just the latest in a long list of jurisd ictions
that now allow the use of marijuana in some
form. They join 44 other states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico with statutes that contradict federal
law by allowing individuals to use pot recreationally, for medicinal purposes, or both. The US government still officially
lists marijuana as a Schedule I pharmaceutical, prohibits the manufacture, distribution, possession, and use of marijuana, an d
consi ders it to have "no accepted medical purpose." Despite this, legalization has moved across the US rapidly since 2012 when
Colorado and Washington State were the first to decriminalize its recreational use.
