Dallas Bar Association
HEADNOTES October 2010 Volume 34 Number 10
Focus Health Law
DBA President Ike Vanden Eykel Leads by Example by Alicia Hernandez
I
f actions speak louder than words, Dallas Bar Association President Ike Vanden Eykel has a voice that can be heard around the Metroplex—if not further. And Mr. Vanden Eykel’s voice is leading the charge to make our legal system accessible to the poor through supporting the work of the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program, a joint program of the Dallas Bar Association and Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas. In August, Mr. Vanden Eykel pledged $30,000 to the 2011 Equal Access to Justice Campaign, which benefits DVAP. His lead contribution launches the campaign and challenges other lawyers to support the program. “The Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program is the most comprehensive pro bono program in Dallas,” he said. “When people cannot afford to hire an attorney, they turn to DVAP for help. When lawyers need to refer a low-income person who needs legal help, this is where they send them. DVAP is our pro bono program, and we need to support it.” Anyone who has worked with Mr. Vanden Eykel has heard him express his passion for pro bono as “the most important things the bar does”, and he doesn’t just give the program lip service. In addition to the more than $242,500 he and his firm have donated to the program since 1994, he has invested his time and talents and those of his partners and associates to personally help low income clients. He has also taken more creative
approaches to helping the program serve more people. Several years ago, Ike sponsored a marketing effort for DVAP, which resulted in DVAP’s ever popular and often copied “Pro Bono: Billable Hours for the Soul” tag line. “Non-profits are so busy helping people that they oftentimes don’t have the time or the budget to focus on things like marketing,” said Mr. Vanden Eykel. “I saw this as an opportunity to help DVAP recruit more lawyers and, in doing so, help more people. DVAP has plenty of clients, but they are always in need of more lawyers to help.” And, his investment has paid off. In 2009, DVAP recruited 844 new volunteers and referred more cases than it has ever before—1,185 to be exact. And, DVAP is on course to break
those records again in 2010. The Honorable Deborah Hankinson, former Texas Supreme Court Justice, Dallas appellate lawyer and legal aid advocate extraordinaire, is also leading the DBA’s effort to raise money for pro bono legal aid. Justice Hankinson pledged $25,000 to the DVAP campaign in August. And, like Mr. Vanden Eykel, Justice Hankinson’s support of DVAP doesn’t stop there. She has been a leader on a national and statewide level in raising awareness and funding for legal aid to the poor. She has served as the Chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defense and as the Supreme Court liaison to the Texas Access to Justice Foundation. She has led the creation of the Texas Access to Justice Commission, an umbrella organization designed to coordinate and enhance legal services to the poor in Texas. She also was instrumental in securing millions of dollars in funding for legal aid to crime victims. “More than 400,000 people live below the poverty level in Dallas County, and our legal aid programs can only help a fraction of those people who need it,” said Justice Hankinson. “Our society depends upon faith in the rule of law for order. People in poor communities already know that the legal aid system is overburdened. Nevertheless, many of the poor in our nation still find the extent of the legal problems in their lives to be so troubling that they come to seek help. And we turn more than half of them away. We simply must find a way to do better. Everycontinued on page 6
Center: The Koons, Fuller, Vanden Eykel & Robertson, P.C. Management Team. Right: James Mitchell and Andrew Payne. Left: Hon. Deborah Hankinson
Focus
Health Law
Health Care Reform’s Impact on Employers by L. Scott Austin and W. Stephen Cockerham
T
he Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended (the Act), broadly impacts employers. This article provides a very high-level overview—the devil is in the details—of some key employer-related provisions. Many details will be forthcoming as regulations are issued.
Small Employers
Approximately 96 percent of businesses in the United States employ fewer than 50 full-time employees (those working 30 or more hours in a week). Under the Act, these businesses are exempt from any responsibility to provide health insurance coverage to their employees. Beginning this year, the Act does provide tax credit incentives for businesses
employing fewer than 25 full-time employees, with average wages less than $50,000 a year, to provide employee health coverage, if they contribute at least half of the total premium cost.
It is “Pay or Play” for Large Employers
One of the fundamental concepts of the Act is that everyone should have health coverage. Thus, beginning in 2014, the Act provides for state-based health care “Exchanges,” through which eligible individuals and employers can purchase health coverage. In order to help pay for these Exchanges, large employers (employers with 50 or more fulltime employees) must pay a penalty if they do not offer group health coverage. Those employers must also pay a penalty if they offer
coverage that does not meet specified requirements and low-income employees obtain coverage from the Exchanges rather than the employer. The penalty for an employer who fails to offer coverage is $2,000 per year for each full-time employee in excess of 30. A penalty also applies if an employer offers employee health coverage (more than 95 percent of large employers do so), but that coverage is unaffordable (an employee’s contribution exceeds 9.5 percent of household income), is below a minimum benefit level (the coverage pays less than 60 percent of covered health expenses), or does not comply with certain other requirements. The penalty will be the lesser of $3,000 for each fulltime employee receiving federal assistance to purchase coverage through an Exchange, or $2,000 for each full-time employee in excess of 30.
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New Requirements for Group Health Plans
The Act imposes many new requirements on group health plans. Some of the requirements will not apply (or will apply on a limited basis) to “grandfathered” plans—generally, group health plans that existed on March 23, 2010—which do not undergo specified types of design changes (e.g., increased cost sharing, or elimination of certain coverage). For all plans—whether or not grandfathered—and effective the first plan year on, or after, September 23, 2010: 1) the limiting age for dependent children is 26 (before 2014, grandfathered plans need not offer coverage to adult children eligible under another plan); 2) there can be no lifetime dollar limits continued on page 6