Sponsor
Mark James Desaulnier
Representative · D-CA
Representative · D-CA
The bill strengthens participant assistance, enforcement, and transparency for benefit plans—helping individuals get denied benefits restored and regulators detect problems—but does so by imposing new fees, reporting requirements, and data collection that raise costs for employers and taxpayers, create privacy risks, and give authorities ongoing fee-setting power.
People denied coverage (including patients with chronic conditions and Medicaid beneficiaries) get direct help with internal appeals, external reviews, and referrals to enforcement or other agencies, increasing chances of benefit restoration and corrective action.
Stronger transparency and oversight: the bill requires annual reporting and disclosures (including insurer names, plan funding, aggregate benefits, vendor payments over $5,000, and program outcomes), which improves regulator and public visibility into plan solvency, provider relationships, and program performance.
Fee revenues will fund enhanced ERISA Title I enforcement and a Benefits Assistance Program, giving regulators sustained resources to help participants and enforce benefit rules.
Plan sponsors and employers will face a new recurring filing fee (with a minimum per filing) and rules prohibiting use of plan assets for fees, increasing plan administration costs that are likely borne by employers or employees and could discourage some employers from offering plans.
New annual reporting and data-collection obligations increase administrative burden for employers and plan administrators and could expose commercially sensitive contracting and business information.
Collecting and publishing disaggregated personal, plan, and vendor data raises privacy and data‑security risks for participants and providers if filings are not securely managed.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Creates a DOL Benefits Assistance Program, funds it with new mandatory filing fees on single-employer welfare plans, and requires new annual notices for certain plans.
Official title: To amend the Employment Retirement Income Security Act to establish a Benefits Assistance Program to improve access to benefits under employee welfare benefit plans, and for other purposes.
Introduced July 16, 2026 by Mark James Desaulnier · Last progress July 16, 2026
Creates a Department of Labor Benefits Assistance Program to help participants, beneficiaries, and providers with adverse benefit determinations, appeals, and referrals, and requires annual public reporting on program activity. It funds the program by imposing new mandatory filing fees on administrators of single-employer welfare benefit plans, and adds a yearly notice requirement for certain single-employer welfare plans that do not already file annual reports with the Department of Labor.