Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021: Understanding the Health and Welfare and Retirement Provisions

Trucker Huss

In a year-end piece of legislation that is 5,593 pages in length, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (the “CAA”) contained numerous provisions that impact employer-sponsored benefit plans, which will be reviewed in this webinar.  Some of the provisions are currently in effect, with other provisions becoming effective in later years.  For many health and welfare plan provisions, an employer will be required to amend vendor contracts and obtain budgets to handle these new requirements.  For certain retirement plan provisions, an employer will need to provide direction to the plan’s third-party administrator and amend its plan documents.

The following will be discussed with regards to health and welfare plans:

• Permitted changes to health FSAs and dependent care FSAs;
• Patient protections from surprise medical billing under the No Surprises Act;
• Health plan price transparency rules;
• Health plan maintenance of price comparison tools;
• Amending health plan contracts to remove gag clauses;
• Requirement for brokers and consultants of health plans to provide additional information regarding direct and indirect compensation;
• Transparency rules under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA); and
• Required reporting on pharmacy benefits and drug costs.

The following will be discussed with regards to retirement plans:

• Relief from partial plan terminations;
• Expansion of in-service distribution rules for certain multiemployer plans; and
• Disaster relief provisions impacting plan distributions and loans.

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