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CalPERS' Strange Alliance

Excerpt: On Monday, the board of the California Public Employees' Retirement System voted not to fire AllianceBernstein, one of the firms implicated in the mutual fund scandal, but to put it on a watch list pending the outcome of various investigations.

Large Companies Form Alliance to Rein in Health Costs

"[The Health Transformation Alliance (HTA)] said its alliance was not a multiple employer welfare arrangement since it didn't assume any financial or performance risk in the delivery of benefits. Instead, the alliance would facilitate contracting opportunities between the alliance members and service providers. And in response to a question on the Affordable Care Act, the HTA said its group was a private sector response to the issue of health-care costs."

To Control Health Care Costs, Employers Should Form Purchasing Alliances

"To achieve the kind of gains in controlling health care costs that employers want, they will ... need to band together in local purchasing alliances, come to agreement on common features of health insurance products, and then, working with local insurers, wrangle price and delivery concessions from local providers."

Multiemployer Pension Alliance Letter to Joint Select Committee on the Solvency of Multiemployer Pensions (PDF)

"A well-designed loan program can save the most troubled plans and the PBGC's insurance program.... Interest rate assumption rules did not cause the solvency crisis facing troubled plans and are not an appropriate 'lever' to avoid future crises.... Sound multiemployer plans cannot pay for the administration's PBGC premium proposal without sustaining substantial harm.... PBGC premium increases do not -- and are not intended to -- address the solvency crisis facing troubled plans."

Corporate Alliance Unveils First Steps Toward Cutting Healthcare Costs

"The blueprint includes group contracts to purchase prescription drugs through units of CVS Health Corp. and UnitedHealth Group Inc.; the creation of specialized doctor networks; and a deal to use International Business Machines Corp.'s Watson software to analyze their health-care data. The nonprofit group, called the Health Transformation Alliance, says combining the negotiating heft of its 38 members allows it to win lower prices than any individual company could alone."

Twenty Major Companies Form New Alliance to Target Healthcare Costs

"The newly formed alliance of companies, which cover about four million people among them, plan to share information about members' employee health spending and outcomes, with an eye toward using findings to change how they contract for care. Ultimately, some members say, they could even form a purchasing cooperative to negotiate for lower prices, or try to change their relationships with insurance administrators and drug-benefit managers."

Health Insurance Cooperatives: An Alliance for Health Reform Toolkit (PDF)

20 pages. Excerpt: As Congress approaches what may be the final stage of this year's health reform debates, legislators continue to search for creative solutions that will expand coverage and reduce costs with little impact on the federal budget. One proposed solution ? health insurance cooperatives ? has received increasing attention as an alternative to a new public coverage plan. Cooperatives are businesses that are owned by members. A health insurance cooperative is owned and operated by the people receiving health coverage through the organization. Since there are no shareholders, profits and savings in a health cooperative can generate reduced premiums or increased benefits for the consumer.

Alliance Seeks Public Comment to Define Six Health Care IT Terms

Excerpt: The alliance's network workgroup is considering definitions for 'regional health information organization' and 'health information exchange,' while its records workgroup is considering definitions for 'electronic medical records,' 'electronic health records,' and 'personal health records' (Health Data Management, 3/25).

New Website: Alliance for an Experienced Workforce

"The Alliance was developed from a National Advisory Council formed to provide input to AARP on their workplace and workforce strategies. The members of the Alliance are committed to collaborating on strategies and to raising the visibility of the importance of workers 50+."

Minnesota's Health Care Gamble with the Smart Buy Alliance of Government and Employers

Excerpt: No one is immune from the problem of runaway costs in the dysfunctional U.S. health care system -- not individual families, not businesses, and certainly not state and federal governments. The universality of the problem is what makes an experiment being launched in Minnesota this month an important national story. Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced on Nov. 29 the formation of the Smart Buy Alliance, an unprecedented partnership of state government and private employers that will[.]

DOL Partially Settles U.S. Alliance Health Care Case; Multimillion Dollar Loss Involved

Press release. Excerpt: Under the consent judgment, Walter Nieves is liable for payment of $2.8 million in unpaid medical claims due to at least 1,500 participants in the U.S. Alliance-related health plans because of his fiduciary breaches of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

Health Alliance Pushes for Expanded Obesity Care in Insurance (PDF)

"The EveryBODY Covered campaign encourages employers to prioritize obesity within workplace healthcare and equity strategies by: [1] Recognizing obesity as a chronic disease with causes that include those outside of an individual's control.... [2] Reviewing your benefits offerings for opportunities to better support obesity care for your employees and communicate coverage as a priority to your benefits administrators.... [3] Working against weight bias at every level of your company and making sure that this is demonstrated through your company's culture."

Drug Makers and Insurance Plans Eye Alliance on Drug Prices

"After years of relentlessly attacking one another, leaders of the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance lobby are considering -- warily -- cooperating to shape any federal legislation that emerges from the public outrage at the high cost of medications. The two powerful lobbies remain fundamentally at odds in their agendas: In the most basic terms, drug makers want to make as much money as they can for their medicines, and insurance companies want to pay as little as possible."

Audio: Unlikely Group Forms Health, Retirement Alliance

Excerpt: An unusual partnership of business, labor and consumer interests has been formed to promote health care and retirement security. The Business Roundtable, Service Workers Union and AARP joined forces to push for new policies.

Employer and President/Trustee Hit With $14 Million in Damages for ESOP-Related ERISA Violations

"The controversy arose from a complex leveraged buyout orchestrated by Alliance Holdings and [its president, David Fenkell, who also served as a trustee of the Alliance Holdings ESOP]. Alliance specialized in purchasing companies with ESOPs, merging these ESOPs into an Alliance ESOP, and then selling the companies for a profit.... Soon after the transaction, the value of ... stock [in Trachte, a company acquired by Alliance,] dropped and so did the account balances of [Trachte ESOP] plan participants."

Health Reform Do's and Don'ts: Veterans of Early 90s' Health Reform Debate Offer Advice to Today's Reformers

Excerpt: To offer guidance to today's reformers and reporters covering today's reform efforts, the Alliance for Health Reform and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation sponsored a December 12 briefing for reporters featuring veterans of the 1990s debate. The Alliance will present a program on the same topic Jan. 18 on Capitol Hill, also cosponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. What went wrong in 1994? What should be done differently the next time around? Panelists answered these questions with many practical suggestions.

DOL Provides Guidance on Racial Equity Plan Supplier Program But Questions Remain

"[Advisory Opinion 2023-01A] did not address the potential impact of [recent US Supreme Court decisions] ... which held that race-conscious admissions policies ... violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.... [In] early August 2023, the American Alliance for Equal Rights filed a race discrimination lawsuit ... [alleging that an] asset manager's grant program, which sought to support Black female business owners, violates Section 1981 [of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (which prohibits discrimination in contracting)]." [American Alliance for Equal Rights v. Fearless Fund, No. 23-3424 (N.D. Ga. complaint filed Aug. 2, 2023; 11th Cir. No. 23-13138 injunction granted Sep. 30, 2023)]

Fifth Circuit Rules in Section 1557 Litigation

"The decision means that HHS is permanently barred from interpreting or enforcing Section 1557 in a way that would require the religious plaintiffs in Franciscan Alliance to perform or provide insurance coverage for services related to gender transition or abortion.... This article discusses this case and also summarizes the status of other litigation over rules to implement Section 1557." [Franciscan Alliance, Inc. v. Becerra, No. 21-11174 (5th Cir. Aug. 26, 2022)]

Amicus Brief of Employer Organizations to Supreme Court in Challenge to Seattle Health Benefit Mandate (PDF)

"Amici and their members are gravely concerned about the consequences if state and local governments are permitted to impose play-or-pay laws, and circumvent ERISA's clear and broad preemption provision, by simply adding that, as an alternative mode of compliance employers may make a payment of the same amount directly to employees or the government." [ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC) v. City of Seattle, No. 20-35472 (9th Cir. Mar. 17, 2021; unpub.; cert. pet. filed Jan. 14, 2022)]

Plan May Deny Coverage for Bariatric Surgery

"[T]he Fifth Circuit, in Rittinger v. Healthy Alliance Life Insurance Company, has ruled that a plan administrator that has been granted discretionary authority with regards to claim decisions, may deny a claim for bariatric surgery when there are conflicting medical opinions as to whether the surgery falls within an exception that would have given the participant coverage for the procedure." [Rittinger v. Healthy Alliance Life Ins. Co., No. 17-20646 (5th Cir. Jan. 31, 2019)]