PPACA Enforcement Focus Is on Providing Benefits, Not Collecting Fines, Official Says

NEW YORK—The Department of Labor is the “tip of the spear” in enforcing the federal health care reform law, but the goal of enforcement is to increase health care coverage—not to send cases to the Internal Revenue Service to collect penalties—Kevin P. Knopf, an attorney adviser in the Treasury Department’s Office of Benefits Tax Counsel, said June 9.

Speaking at the 2011 Employee Benefits in Mergers & Acquisitions conference put on by the American Bar Association’s Joint Committee on Employee Benefits, Knopf discussed the role of the various agencies in implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ( ...