With low expectations of Congress and the Obama administration reaching a consensus on changes to the health care reform law in 2014, much of the focus of employers will be on reform law regulations.

That focus will center, benefit experts say, on two broad areas: the release of proposed regulations where none have so far been issued, and finalizing guidance that already has been proposed.

Even though the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed more than three years ago, regulators have yet to propose guidance in several key areas relevant to employers.

For example, under the law, employers with at least 200 employees are required to automatically enroll employees who do not choose a medical plan and to give them the opportunity to opt out of a plan in which they were automatically enrolled.

Earlier, regulators said automatic enrollment rules would not be proposed until 2014.

The likelihood, though, of that regulatory intent being met is low, experts say.

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“My understanding is that this is at the bottom of the IRS priority list,” said J.D. Piro, a senior vice president with Aon Hewitt in Norwalk, Conn.

Regulatory guidance also is lacking on a health care reform law provision due to take effect in 2018 that imposes a 35% excise tax on health care premiums that exceed $10,200 for single coverage and $27,500 for family coverage. The tax would be paid by plan administrators and insurers, who then almost certainly would seek reimbursement from employers.

While the provision on its face appears straightforward, there are unknowns, such as whether the excise tax trigger would be set higher in states with above-average costs.

But given that the tax does not take effect until 2018, experts say the odds are overwhelmingly against guidance being issued this year.

“Guidance is pretty far down the line on that one,” said Rich Stover, a principal with Buck Consultants L.L.C. in Secaucus, N.J.

On the other hand, because of a looming effective date, final guidance is expected sometime this year on a health care reform law provision that imposes a fee — to be paid annually in 2015, 2016 and 2017 — on group health care plan sponsors. The $25 billion that is supposed to be generated by the fee is to be used to partially reimburse commercial insurers that cover individuals with high health care costs.

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Regulators have said the fee for the first year — to be paid in early 2015 — would be $63 per plan participant; for the second year, the fee would be $44. The amount of the Transitional Reinsurance Program fee to be paid in the third year has not been set yet.

Still waiting for final action are proposed U.S. Department of Health and Human Services rules that would exempt health care plans that are self-insured and self-administered from the fee during the last two years of the program.

That special exemption, though, has drawn fire from several lawmakers, who say it is geared to big union health care plans.

“Since the overwhelming majority of self-administered health insurance plans are run by unions, let's call this what it is: a political payback by the administration to its union friends for backing this disastrous law,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said at the time he introduced legislation to bar regulators from finalizing the special exemption.

Employer groups also oppose the special exemption.

“The proposed change is particularly unfair, as it favors a particular subgroup of plans at the expense of other plans, which now must bear the burden of the reinsurance fee that HHS has shifted to them,” ERISA Industry Committee President and CEO Scott Macey and the committee's senior vice president for health policy, Gretchen Young, wrote in comments they sent last month to HHS.

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Also yet to be finalized is a related HHS proposal that would give employers the option to pay the reinsurance fee in two installments. Rather than pay the full $63 per participant payment by Jan. 15, 2015, employers under the proposed notice would make a payment of $52.50 per participant then, and an additional $10.50 per participant payment would be due late in the fourth quarter of 2015.

For the 2015 benefit year, the $44-per-participant reinsurance fee could be paid in two installments: $33 in January 2016 and $11 per health care plan participant payable in the fourth quarter of 2016.

Still to be finalized are proposed HHS regulations relating to employee assistance plans. Those regulations would effectively kill a much-discussed strategy in which employers would only offer EAPs — which typically cost only a couple of hundred dollars per year per employee — to certain workers, such as low-wage employees, who previously were not offered coverage.

At issue is whether EAPs would be considered minimum essential coverage. That's a key issue because a huge health care reform law penalty — $2,000 per employee — is triggered starting in 2015 if an employer does not offer minimum essential coverage.

In the proposed rules, which would go into effect in 2015, virtually all EAPs would be considered “excepted” benefits that do not provide minimum essential coverage.

As a result, offering just an EAP would not exempt an employer from the $2,000 per employee penalty. In addition, if an employee were covered by such a plan, the employee would not lose eligibility for a premium subsidy to buy health insurance coverage in a public exchange, Buck Consultants' Mr. Stover said.