Employers Now Required to Disclose Cost of Health Care Coverage

The Day, a Connecticut newspaper, highlights a small but important new employer requirement:

Look closely at your new W-2 form this tax season. Notice Box 12 and a two-letter code, DD. If you work for an employer with 250 or more workers, information in that box for the first time is required by the Affordable Care Act. It tells how much you and your employer spent on your health insurance premiums.

The W-2 reporting requirement for health insurance is to expand next year to include employers with fewer than 250 on payroll.

The health insurance benefit amount isn't taxable as personal income - for now, anyway. But it is insight into your employer's total cost of your compensation. It also is a reflection of what you would pay if you lost your employer subsidy and wanted to keep the same coverage under COBRA.

The idea behind this new requirement is that making the price of coverage more transparent will encourage employers and employees to be more cost conscience when picking coverage.

Read more about the new law here.