Image: Chris Nicholls/ALM
The Employee Benefits Security Administration finally has an administrator, Daniel Aronowitz, and he will start his post with a long and rapidly growing health policy to-do list.
Members of the Senate 51-47 Thursday to approve a measure that confirmed the Aronowitz nomination, along with the nominations for dozens of other Trump administration nominees.
EBSA is part of the U.S. Labor Department, and it helps the department oversee employers' retirement plans and health plans.
Aronowitz — a longtime labor lawyer who ran a casualty insurance subsidiary of Ullico and later built a big benefit plan fiduciary service firm — is taking over at a time when members of Congress are clashing loudly over many issues but continue to find common ground on some health policy matters, such as supporting low-cost programs that help people cope with opioid abuse.
He is best known for his argument that EBSA should speak clearly, not use fuzzy rules to discourage employers from finding loopholes, and that EBSA should not encourage "regulation through litigation."
Two Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee crossed party lines to back him when the committee was considering his nomination, but no Democrats or independents voted for his confirmation on the Senate floor.
What will Aronowitz do now?
Here are five health policy possibilities, based on his statements on EBSA's own administrative agenda.
1. Broker compensation disclosure regulations: They are supposed to implement provisions that became law in 2021. EBSA predicted in its latest regulatory agenda that it will complete work on them in December.
2. Transparency in coverage health price disclosure regulations: Trump administration officials have repeatedly emphasized the importance of price disclosure, and EBSA said in its regulatory agenda that draft regulations could show up in November.
3. Mental health parity regulations: The Trump administration decided in May to put off implementing Biden-era regulations that were supposed to ensure that employer health plans that cover mental health and addiction treatment benefits use the same kinds of "non-quantitative rules," such as guidelines for use of inpatient services, that they use for other health benefits.
Employers complained that the final regulations were unworkable, and President Joe Biden's own regulation impact analysts noted that implementation would be expensive.
But employers and Republican policymakers have seemed to be open to the idea of coming up with a revised version of the non-quantitative treatment limit requirements.
4. Association health plans: Aronowitz has emphasized that he likes the idea of making it easier for employers to team up to buy health coverage.
5. Health accounts: Aronowitz does not seem to have said much about health savings accounts or individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements, but many House Republicans are strong supporters of ICHRAs, HSAs and other health benefits accounts, and health account programs have some support from congressional Democrats.
The future of the health account-based programs could depend partly on what Aronowitz thinks about them.
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