On Nov. 2, 2015, President Obama signed into law the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, which included a provision repealing the ACA’s automatic enrollment requirement.

Therefore, this requirement will not take effect at any point, and employers will not be required to automatically enroll employees in their group health plan coverage.

Under the ACA, certain large employers that offer health coverage would have been required to automatically enroll new employees (and re-enroll current employees) in one of the employer’s health plans, subject to any permissible waiting period. The ACA further required adequate notice to employees and the opportunity for an employee to opt out of any coverage in which the employee was automatically enrolled.

This automatic enrollment requirement would have applied to employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) with more than 200 full-time employees.

However, the Departments did not issue regulations or other final guidance regarding the ACA’s automatic enrollment requirement. As a result, this requirement never took effect for any employers. The repeal ensures that no employers will be required to comply with the ACA’s automatic enrollment requirement at any point.