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Supreme Court Mows Down Yard-Man

"Although the Court overturned the Sixth Circuit's Yard-Man inference, it did not directly answer M&G's question on appeal -- whether the Court preferred (a) the Yard-Man inference, (b) the Third Circuit's position requiring a clear statement that the benefits are intended to survive an agreement's expiration, or (c) the Second and Seventh Circuit analysis that simply requires some language that reasonably supports an interpretation that the benefits should continue. The Court declined to resolve ambiguity among the circuits, instead limiting its analysis to the Yard-Man inference." [M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, No. 13-1010 (U.S. Jan. 26, 2015)]

The Long-Awaited Death of Yard-Man

"Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court and dismantled the Yard-Man presumption. In Yard-Man, the Sixth Circuit professed to apply traditional rules for contract interpretation in finding that retiree medical benefits ... had vested.... The Supreme Court found that the Yard-Man inference violates ordinary contract principles 'by placing a thumb on the scale in favor of vested retiree benefits in all collective bargaining agreements.' Instead, as in traditional contract interpretation, ascertaining the intention of the parties should be paramount." [M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, No. 13-1010 (U.S. Jan. 26, 2015)]

Supreme Court Bids Adieu to Yard-Man Inferences (PDF)

"[The] Court held that the Yard-Man line of cases, 'a thumb on the scale' in favor of construing retiree health benefits provided through collective bargaining as irrevocable lifetime promises, was 'not compatible with ordinary principles of contract law.' On that point, the Court was unanimous. A concurring opinion by four Justices suggested, however, that disagreement remains on exactly how 'ordinary principles of contract law' affect the interpretation of welfare benefit plans." [M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, No. 13-1010 (U.S. Jan. 26, 2015)]

Supreme Court Rejects Yard-Man: Ordinary Contract Principles Apply When Interpreting Retiree Medical Promises

"The invalidation of Yard-Man will help employers, but the CBA's language as a whole and -- if the agreement is ambiguous -- appropriate evidence of the parties' intent remain key to resolving whether the employer has retained the right to amend, modify or terminate retiree medical benefits.... Durational language limiting retiree medical coverage to the term of the CBA can limit the employer's obligation to continue providing retiree medical benefits, unless the durational language is diluted by other language in the CBA that indicates retiree medical coverage continues beyond the contract term." [M&G Polymers v. Tackett, No. 13-1010 (U.S. Jan. 26, 2015)]

Man With Controversial Illness Should Get Benefits

Honda must award long-term disability payments to a 47-year-old man suffering from extreme Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the 9th Circuit ruled, finding that the insurance company's denial of those benefits was 'implausible' and 'illogical.'

Whether You Work for The Man or You Work for Yourself, Retirement Looms

Excerpt: If you're self-employed, you've got a lot more options and a lot more decisions to make. It's worth the time and effort to check them all out, though, because you'll get benefits similar to those of your company-man neighbors.

Arkansas Cuts Out a Pharma Middle Man

"Arkansas has become the first state in the national to enact legislation, effective starting in 2026, prohibiting pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) from owning or operating actual pharmacies within the state.... Unfortunately for employers (including employers with self-funded plans governed by ERISA), there may be limited options for the forthcoming disruption."

Florida Man Faces 100 Years in Prison for Health Insurance Scam

"While the vast majority of healthcare fraud cases in South Florida involve false claims filed with the federal insurance program, Medicare, a rising number of them entail fraudulent bills submitted to private insurers such as United and Blue Cross. For years, the region has been recognized as the nation's capital of healthcare fraud."

HIPAA Guidance Issued on Man-in-the-Middle Attacks

"OCR states that when electronic protected health information (ePHI) that is protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is transmitted over the internet, covered entities and business associates should include factors for securing end-to-end communication in their security risk analysis required by the HIPAA Security Rule."

Is the Prudent Man Standard Good Enough?

"While we have made significant strides in implementing 'automatic' plan designs that help participants get off to a better start than they might have if left to their own devices, it still seems that most fiduciaries gravitate toward the 'first, do no harm' standard generally associated with the medical profession's Hippocratic Oath. A higher standard might arguably be the so-called 'Golden Rule,' which sets as its marker that you do to others how you would like them to do to you. How might that apply to retirement plan designs?"

How to Save America's Broken Retirement System, According to the Man Who Revolutionized Investing for Main Street

[John C. Bogle said:] "At first, the 401(k) was designed to be a thrift plan, an extra, a savings plan. It was never designed to be a retirement plan. You can see it in its very structure. There's no requirement to put money in, no requirement to pull it out. It's too flexible.... There ought to be restrictions, much more serious restrictions on taking your money out. You need discipline putting it in and the limits on pulling it out."

A Farewell to Yard-Man

"First, the Court restated some of the more employer-friendly language from its previous case.... Next, the Court set out a series of principles of contract interpretation that should be applied to plan interpretation, all of which generally tend to weigh against a finding of lifetime 'vesting' of retiree health benefits... Employers also will be heartened by the Court's rejection of the Sixth Circuit's holding that retiree health benefits are a form of deferred compensation." [M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, No. 13-1010 (U.S. Jan. 26, 2015)]

Supreme Court Rejects Yard-Man Inference That Retiree Welfare Benefits Extend Beyond the Term of Collective Bargaining Agreements (PDF)

"Justice Thomas' opinion makes clear that any inferences of the type adopted by the Sixth Circuit must be based on facts found in the record, not on the courts 'suppositions about the intentions of employees, unions, and employers negotiating retiree benefits.' ... Importantly, the analytic framework adopted by the Supreme Court requires that future courts confronting vesting questions conduct a traditional analysis of the contractual language, only relying on extrinsic evidence if a material term is ambiguous." [M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, No. 13-1010 (U.S. Jan. 26, 2015)]

Supreme Court Dispenses with the Yard-Man Inferences

"The Supreme Court's opinion rejects the three rationales most commonly employed in support of claims for lifetime retiree health benefits -- that the benefits are deferred compensation, that to prevent vesting the agreement must explicitly curtail the duration of the benefits, and that the duration of the health benefit is tied to the lifetime payment of pension benefits. This does not mean that employers will always prevail, but it should lessen the concerns by employers about litigating retiree benefit claims in the Sixth Circuit, as well as the inconsistency multi-jurisdictional employers faced by having different outcomes in different circuits." [M&G Polymers v. Tackett, No. 13-1010 (U.S. Jan. 26, 2015)]

Fifth Video Emerges, Showing Gruber Mocking Man Worried About Obamacare

"The video is the fifth in string of videos to surface this week in which [MIT economist Jonathan] Gruber publicly mocks citizens or boasts of his use of deception in crafting health care policies. Gruber is being paid $400,000 by the state of Vermont to advise Gov. Peter Shumlin on how to finance Act 48, Vermont's single-payer health care law. His recommendations will be presented to the Vermont Legislature in January."

Proposed Legislation Aims to Codify 'Yard-Man Inference' as a Rebuttable Presumption

"The Act would: [1] Require employers to include in their SPDs whether the employer may unilaterally modify or terminate benefits. If the employer's rights are not clearly communicated to employees, there will be a presumption that benefits have 'fully vested and cannot be modified or terminated for the life of the employee or, if longer, the life of the employee's spouse.' ... [2] Make it an 'unfair labor practice' to change the terms of a CBA that governs retired employees' benefits. [3] Only allow reductions in benefits that are "necessary to prevent the liquidation of the debtor.'"

Chicago Pension Tab: $18,596 for Every Man, Woman, Child

"That per-person figure is the highest among the nation's 25 largest cities. It's nearly double that of New York, the city with the second-largest tab. And it's more than five times the median for locales[.]"

One Man's Adventures at Healthcare.Gov

"My first task was to select a username and password.... I tried one of 34 characters created randomly by banging on the keyboard of my laptop with my eyes closed until I was satisfied. This one, too, was already taken.... A few minutes passed and my e-mail inbox greeted me. The Health Insurance Marketplace informed me that my username and password had been accepted. The key question was which one."

One Man's Quest to Sign Up for Obamacare: Day Four

"I had just entered my profile name. It sent me an email to my email address. I clicked on the link to take me back to the page ... and it 'couldn't find a Marketplace profile that matched information' that I provided? How in the world did it email me then? ... The 'invalid format' for answers of security questions that I provided were words. In English. No symbols. No sentences. Just simple words that I was pretty sure I could remember if asked again. Alas, I'm not sure I will ever be given that opportunity. At least millions are still visiting the website."

Descent Into Madness: An Account of One Man's Visit to Healthcare.gov on October 1st

"As the owners of small businesses, my family has been curious to learn how much insurance would cost us once the Affordable Care Act kicks in -- and what our choices of networks, providers and whatnot would be. With the arrival of the October 1 open enrollment period, my first computer stop was healthcare.gov to begin comparison shopping among the four ACA plans vs. the COBRA plan that we have through the end of 2014. Here's how it went[.]"