Co-op Benefit Legislation Victories Imminent

On Tuesday, December 17, 2019, the House passed a spending package to fund the federal government through the rest of fiscal year 2020. In addition to the RURAL Act of 2019, this package included two key benefit-related legislative priorities that help cooperatives—passage of the SECURE Act and the full repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Cadillac Tax. The package is expected to be passed by the Senate shortly and then signed by the President before the current government spending agreement runs out at midnight on Friday, December 20, 2019.

NRECA will provide additional details later this week once the final package is signed into law. A high-level overview of these benefit-related legislative wins follows:

• H.R. 1994, Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019, will reduce the premiums that electric co-ops in the Retirement Security (RS) Plan pay to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. This premium reduction will help reduce the cost pressure on participating employers by offsetting to some extent future RS Plan cost increases that could be necessary. The SECURE Act also provides nondiscrimination testing relief for co-ops in the RS Plan or in their own defined-benefit plans that are “closed” to new employees but continue to provide benefits
• By repealing the ACA Cadillac Tax, the legislation eliminates the 40% excise tax on health care coverage provided through an employer-sponsored group health plan. This tax was scheduled to take effect in 2022. This is a victory for all electric co-ops that offer their employees access to health care coverage, regardless of which plan or carrier they contract with for their group benefit coverage

Passage of this legislation is the culmination of years of work and is only possible because of the dedicated effort and support of member co-ops. Thank you for your steadfast support and collaboration as we worked together to secure these wins.