COVID relief bill will let businesses seek second PPP loan

 Some American small businesses will be able to seek a second government-backed loan to help them get through the coronavirus pandemic.

The $900 billion stimulus bill that’s headed to President Trump’s desk includes about $284 billion in additional funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, which offered small employers forgivable loans meant to keep their staff on the payroll.

The Small Business Administration has already distributed 5.2 million PPP loans worth more than $525 billion. Businesses that are still struggling may be able to get another round of help — but they’ll have to meet stricter criteria than in the spring.

For one, only companies with 300 or fewer employees will be eligible for second loans, down from a limit of 500 in the program’s first iteration, according to text of the stimulus legislation Congress passed Monday.

Additional loans will be capped at $2 million instead of the previous limit of $10 million. And applicants seeking a second loan will have to show that their sales in at least one quarter of this year dropped by 25 percent or more from the prior year’s levels.

Additionally, the new law bars publicly traded companies from seeking PPP funds, a provision that was added after outrage about hundreds of such firms snagging millions of dollars in loans. Some big names such as Shake Shack and Lindblad Expeditions have returned the money.

The bill also simplifies the process for forgiving loans of less than $150,000. Those small borrowers will just have to sign a one-page form attesting that the money was used for its intended purpose.

That’s a win for banks, which had expressed concerns that the initial forgiveness process was too burdensome for small companies receiving little loans.

The stimulus package also gives the SBA $50 million to conduct audits and take up other efforts to tackle fraud in the massive program, according to the New York Times. The agency and the Treasury Department have already pledged to audit all loans larger than $2 million, but that will encompass less than 1 percent of the loans and only about 20 percent of all the money that’s been given out.

From New York Post, 12-22-20

Exchange Notice Requirement Under ACA

FLSA section 18B, added to the labor statute by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), requires employers that are subject to the FLSA (most employers) to provide to each of their employees, and to all new employees at the time of hiring, a written notice.  The notice is to remind employees of the availability of the health insurance exchange.  

The notice must be provided to each employee, regardless of plan-enrollment status or part-time or full-time status. Employers are not required to provide a separate notice to dependents or retirees, but an employer's obligation to provide the notice may extend to its independent contractors and leased workers, depending on the nature of their relationship with the employer as determined under the FLSA's "economic reality" test.  Below is a link for a Model Notice that can be used to satisfy the requirement.

http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/pdf/FLSAwithplans.pdf

Insurer Mega Mergers: What It May Mean To You

Not too long ago Coventry was gobbled up by Aetna, then Aetna grabbed Humana and now Anthem making a deal to purchase Cigna.  With these mega-mergers what should we expect?  Will rates rise because we have less competition?  Will, the now, larger insurers decide to merge and move us even closer to a socialist single-payer system?  


Excerpt by Chad Bray, NewYorkTimes 7-24-15....

The health insurer Anthem said on Friday that it had agreed to acquire its rival Cigna for $48.3 billion in a deal that would further concentrate the United States market to just a few major players.The combined company would have estimated revenue of about $115 billion and serve more than 53 million people with medical coverage.A flurry of deals are reshaping the industry. Earlier this month Aetna agreed to acquire Humana, the smallest of the big five insurers, for $37 billion in cash and stock. If both transactions are completed, the number of major health insurers in the United States will shrink to three.Health insurers are seeking to consolidate to gain greater scale to reduce costs and capitalize on growing opportunities in the government and individual markets. A major force has been the Obama administration’shealth care overhaul, which has bolstered revenues. But greater transparency in pricing and less generous funding of government plans have also put profit margins under pressure.
It is possible that regulators in the United States could block some mergers: Antitrust officials at the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have shown an increasing willingness to do so if they believe the alliances could hurt consumers.
Analysts have said that antitrust regulators would probably allow only some deals to go forward, and that they could stop others if they decided that too much power was being concentrated in too few hands.