On June 22, 2017, Senate Republicans released their budget reconciliation ACA-repeal-and-replacement proposal — the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA). It's still unclear at this point whether the GOP has a sufficient number of votes to pass the bill, though, especially given its CBO score, which found that there would be 22 million uninsured Americans under implementation of the BCRA. 

BCRA and employers Employers should generally be very happy with the proposal and particularly pleased that the legislation doesn't change the employer/employee "exclusion" from taxation on group health benefits. We'd been concerned with the ongoing discussion of eliminating this exclusion in order to raise tax revenue, as such a change would have a direct impact on both employees and employers. Fortunately, this issue appears to be off the table for now, though we may see it arise again in the future. 

As expected, the employer and individual mandate penalties are repealed in this version of the bill. Unfortunately, the employer reporting requirements cannot be repealed through the reconciliation process, and they may still be necessary to administer premium tax credits — though we expect the reporting to be simplified in future legislation or rule-making.