Agencies Issue Final Rules Codifying Early ACA Regulations

The Internal Revenue Service and a pair of other federal agencies issued final regulations codifying many of the initial rules implementing the Affordable Care Act.

The rules (T.D. 9744), regarding grandfathered health plans, pre-existing condition exclusions, lifetime and annual dollar limits on benefits, rescissions, coverage of dependent children to age 26, internal claims and appeals and external review processes, and patient protections, were released Nov. 13 by the IRS, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Labor Department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration.

“What they’ve done is mainly just adopted a lot of sub-regulatory guidance into regulation,” Washington ...