Overview

Join Mercer's Nov. 13 Washington Update Briefing on employee health, fringe and retirement benefits.

Whether and how Congress extends the expiring enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace subsidies holds implications for employer-sponsored health plans, and any deal could also include proposals to reform pharmacy benefit manager business practices, improve healthcare price transparency, address drug prices and set “site neutral” provider payment policies. Retirement-focused bills on the agenda would expand investment options for defined contribution (DC) plans, allow more flexibility for using surplus defined benefit plan assets and reform investigative and enforcement efforts of the Department of Labor (DOL).

President Trump’s healthcare-related executive orders and policy initiatives continue to impact employer-sponsored group health plans while we await regulatory guidance to implement changes made by the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” Ongoing litigation covers a range of topics, including challenges to state law under ERISA and group health plan exclusions of gender-affirming care. Plan sponsors are closely tracking updates to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services immunization schedules that could affect ACA-mandated preventive services without cost sharing.

DC retirement plan sponsors are preparing to implement SECURE 2.0’s Roth catch-up mandate for high-earning employees in 2026 following IRS’s release of final regulations. DC plan sponsors also await DOL guidance in response to an executive order aimed at encouraging fiduciaries to offer participants greater exposure to private equity, digital currencies and other “alternative assets.” DOL issued an advisory opinion which examines one strategy for incorporating a lifetime income solution into a DC plan’s qualified default investment alternative (QDIA).

Experts from Mercer’s Law & Policy Group will discuss these and other issues during this live 60-minute webinar.

Speakers