As ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Finance on January 28, 2015
H.R. 22 would amend section 4980H(c)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code to provide that employees who have medical coverage under TRICARE or certain programs administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs would not be taken into account for purposes of determining whether the employer is large enough to be subject to employer responsibility payments under the Affordable Care Act.
CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) expect that enacting H.R. 22 would reduce the number of employers that would be required to make such employer responsibility payments. As a result, CBO and JCT estimate that enacting H.R. 22 would reduce revenues, and thereby increase budget deficits, by $858 million over the 2015-2025 period. Because the bill would not affect individuals’ eligibility for any type of health insurance coverage or the costs of that coverage, CBO and JCT anticipate that it would have a negligible effect on the number of people without health insurance and the sources of coverage for people who will be insured.
The Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 establishes budget-reporting and enforcement procedures for legislation affecting direct spending and revenues. Enacting H.R. 22 would result in revenue losses in each year beginning in 2016. The estimated increases in the deficit are shown in the following table.
JCT has determined that the bill contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.
