The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) provides that under certain circumstances participants and beneficiaries of group health plans that satisfy the definition of Âqualified beneficiaries under COBRA may elect to continue group health coverage temporarily following events known as Âqualifying events that would otherwise result in loss of coverage. COBRA provides that the Secretary of Labor (the Secretary) has the authority under section 608 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to carry out the provisions of Part 6 of title I of ERISA. The Conference Report that accompanied COBRA authorized the Secretary to issue regulations implementing the notice and disclosure requirements of COBRA.
Under the regulatory guidelines, plan administrators are required to distribute notices as follows: a general notice to be distributed to all participants in group health plans subject to COBRA; an employer notice that must be completed by the employer upon the occurrence of a qualifying event; a notice and election form to be sent to a participant upon the occurrence of a qualifying event that might cause the participant to lose group health coverage; an employee notice that may be completed by a qualified beneficiary upon the occurrence of certain qualifying events such as divorce or disability; and, two other notices, one of early termination and the other a notice of unavailability. Also included in the ICR are two model notices that the Department believes will help reduce costs for service providers in preparing and delivering notices to comply with the regulations.
On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, Public Law 111-5. ARRA includes a requirement that the Secretary of Labor (the Secretary), in consultation with the Secretaries of the Treasury and Health and Human Services, develop model notices. These models are for use by group health plans and other entities that, pursuant to ARRA, must provide notices of the availability of premium reductions and additional election periods for health care continuation coverage.
US Code:
29 USC 1166
Name of Law: Employee Retirement Income Security Act
The increases in PRA cost burden are due to updates in labor and postage costs related to inflation. Additionally, the Affordable Care Act permits dependents up to age 26 to remain on their parents' health insurance policies. This statutory change took effect prior to the previous submission; however, this change was inadvertently not factored into cost estimates at that time. A sizable increase in the number of dependents living outside the household is evident in this submission. As an upper-bound estimate of the impact of the statutory change, the Department determined that 1.7 million dependents living outside the home were aged 19 to 25 and had never married. Many of these individuals would not have fallen under this ICR prior to enactment of the ACA. The cost associated with these individuals was approximately $807,000.
Finally, the previous PRA submission counted service provider labor hours as hour burden, which resulted in double-counting the labor cost, because the labor cost was also included in the cost burden. Upon further consideration, the agency has concluded that, because outside service providers are expected to absorb all of the burden, the costs in this submission should be counted as maintenance and operations cost burdens, and not as hour burden.
$0
No
No
Yes
No
No
Uncollected
Chris Cosby 202 693-8540
No
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that the collection of information encompassed by this request complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding the proposed collection of information, that the certification covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
SSCOBRA13renewal.doc
Notice Requirements of the Health Care Continuation Coverage Provisions