Definition of “Employer”-Association Health Plans

Document 2024-08985 is a Final Rule published by the Department of Labor in the Federal Register on April 30, 2024, with an effective date of July 1, 2024. This document rescinds the Department of Labor's (Department or DOL) 2018 rule entitled "Definition of Employer Under Section 3(5) of ERISA--Association Health Plans" (2018 AHP Rule). The 2018 AHP Rule established an alternative set of criteria from those set forth in the Department's pre-2018 AHP Rule (pre-rule) guidance for determining when a group or association of employers is acting "indirectly in the interest of an employer" under section 3(5) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) for purposes of establishing an association health plan (AHP) as a multiple employer group health plan. The 2018 AHP Rule was a significant departure from the Department's longstanding pre-rule guidance on the definition of "employer" under ERISA. This departure substantially weakened the Department's traditional criteria in a manner that would have enabled the creation of commercial AHPs functioning effectively as health insurance issuers. The Department now believes that the core provisions of the 2018 AHP Rule are, at a minimum, not consistent with the best reading of ERISA's statutory requirements governing group health plans. View the original at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/04/30/2024-08985/definition-of-employer-association-health-plans.

No. Document 2024-08985 is not classified as economically significant under Executive Order 12866. Economically significant rules require OIRA review and are estimated to have impacts of $100 million or more per year.