Search the News Archive

Heritage Foundation's 2003 Agenda on Health Care Reform

Excerpt: Members of Congress should help the millions of uninsured individuals and families secure private health care coverage by supporting the enactment of individual health care tax credits.

MORE >>

The Benefits of Medicaid Expansion: A Reply to the Heritage Foundation

"[W]hile a Medicaid expansion would increase [Ohio's] Medicaid costs by about $2.5 billion from 2014 through 2022, it would also save [the state] $1.5 billion by reducing state spending on current programs in favor of the largely federally financed expansion.... Medicaid expansion would create more than 27,000 Ohio jobs, reduce the number of uninsured by more than 450,000, cut health costs for employers and residents by $285 million and $1.1 billion, respectively, and lessen budget shortfalls facing Ohio's counties."  MORE >>

The Heritage Foundation's Take on Greenspan's Social Security Remarks

Excerpt: No country has a 'perfect' system, but 29 countries across the globe have already created personal retirement accounts and the results have been almost uniformly positive. These countries range from Australia to Sweden to Switzerland to Slovakia. No system is perfect for the United States, we'll have to develop our own, but there is an awful lot that we can learn from them.  MORE >>

Kaiser Family Foundation Policy Workshop on Drug Formularies and Medicare

Excerpt: The Kaiser Family Foundation hosted a March 14, 2005 policy workshop on the use of drug formularies in the private sector and their potential implications for beneficiaries under the new Medicare drug benefit, set to go into effect January 1, 2006. .... In connection with today's workshop, the Foundation also released a number of new and updated reports and other resources [links available on the target page].  MORE >>

New CEO for International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans; Altobelli Retires After 14 Years

Press release. Excerpt: The International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans announced that Michael Wilson has been hired as the new chief executive officer. Wilson begins his post on September 9, following the retirement of current CEO John A. Altobelli.... During Altobelli's tenure, the Foundation has grown from a $9 million to a $24 million budget. The number of programs offered expanded from 35 in 1988 to over 100 today.

MORE >>

NASRA Comments on Reason Foundation's 2025 Pension Solvency and Performance Report (PDF)

"Reason's '2025 Pension Solvency and Performance Report' characterizes public pensions as operating continuously on a precipice, one market downturn from falling into an abyss and sending their sponsoring governments to fiscal ruin. Reason relies on specious comparisons of public pension plans and selective data while ignoring industry standards and practices, to present a pessimistic image of public pensions that are in financial and actuarial peril and investing at an inappropriately high level of risk."  MORE >>

Securing HSAs with AI-Driven Identity Verification: The Foundation of Account Takeover Fraud Protection

"Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are an attractive target for fraudsters, and HSA providers must use automated methods to stop them before funds are lost....Best practices include: [1] Retiring micro-deposit verification through bank accounts. [2] Integrating instant bank account verification inside the member app. [3] Enabling real-time verification outcomes."  MORE >>

Cybersecurity: Service Providers and Employers Must Form a Foundation of Trust

"A foundation of trust between a service provider and employees and clients is essential when sensitive information and processes are part of the relationship.... Business email is fraught with peril, [attorney Joshua Cook] suggested, remarking that it's 'shockingly easy' for email to be compromised. Also, almost 70% of U.S. organizations are victims of ransomware attacks, he said, remarking, 'that number is startling to me.' Further, 74% of those attacks were aimed at small and medium-sized businesses in the first quarter of 2024."  MORE >>

Strong Strategic Plans Are the Foundation for Good Governance

"Public pension funds are complex organizations that ensure financial security for millions of retired public sector employees and require careful management and oversight to remain effective and sustainable.... [O]ne of the foundational and most effective ways to enhance governance in pension systems is to implement a long-term strategic plan, because it provides a comprehensive framework that guides decision-making, improves transparency, and strengthens long-term sustainability."  MORE >>

Benefits Outside the Box: Using a Charitable Foundation to Enhance Your Culture and Community

"If your Company leadership is looking for an innovative employee benefit – something outside the standard employee benefit package of retirement, health, and welfare benefits, a Company-sponsored charitable foundation might be your answer. A charitable foundation not only can further your Company culture while serving the community, but it also has tax benefits to boot."  MORE >>

Providing Emergency Assistance to Employees Via Employer-Sponsored Private Foundations

"According to Publication 3833, employer-sponsored private foundations may provide assistance to employees or family members affected by a 'qualified disaster' (as defined in the Internal Revenue Code) as long as certain safeguards are in place to ensure that such assistance is servicing charitable purposes, rather than the business purposes of the employer.... [T]he IRS may still review the facts and circumstances to ensure that any benefit to the employer is tenuous and incidental, and that its program is not used to induce employees to follow a course of action sought by the employer or designed to designed to relieve the employer of a legal obligation for employee benefits."  MORE >>

Reason Foundation's Pension Reform Newsletter, December 2014

Topics include: [1] GAO Report on Pension Discount Rates: A Comprehensive Picture; [2] Myth And Muddle Blocking Pension Reform; [3] Stockton and Detroit Exit Bankruptcy Leaving Pension Systems As-Is; [4] Judge Strikes Down Reform of Illinois' Extremely Screwed Up Public Pensions; [5] Pension Debt: Omaha's Billion Dollar Problem; [6] Demographic Changes Threaten Pensions; and [7] Truth in Accounting: The 2013 Financial State of States.  MORE >>

New QLACs Establish Foundation for DC Annuitization

"Even though the establishment of the QLAC provides a good planning tool, and it does provide a modest tax benefit, that is not the real story here. The true impact of the QLAC regulation, and what makes it so very important, is that it establishes the foundation under tax law by which DC plans can simply annuitize."  MORE >>

New QLACs Establish Foundation for DC Annuitization

"The true impact of the QLAC reg ... is that it establishes the foundation under tax law by which DC plans can simply annuitize.... There is more work to be done on tweaking a number of rules ... It does not solve the problem of adequate lifetime income ... It also does not address the fiduciary issues related to the purchase of annuities[.]"  MORE >>

Nonprofits Caught in Pension Crossfire Between Arnold Foundation, Public Employee Unions

"[I]rate public-employee unions are pressing nonprofits such as public television, the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Brookings Institution to stop taking money from the Houston-based organization. The unions argue that the Arnold Foundation is trying to sway public opinion to support replacing public pensions -- which give workers including police, firefighters and teachers guaranteed benefits at retirement -- with defined-contribution accounts similar to 401(k)s, or hybrid approaches."  MORE >>

Kaiser Family Foundation Creates Interactive ACA Implementation Timeline

"The implementation timeline is an interactive tool designed to explain how and when the provisions of the health reform law will be implemented over the next several years. You can show or hide all the changes occurring in a year by clicking on that year. Click on a provision to get more information about it. Customize the timeline by checking and unchecking specific topics."  MORE >>

Text of Amicus Brief of Texas Public Policy Foundation and Cato Institute, Arguing Against Severability in Constitutional Challenge to Mandated Health Insurance Coverage (PDF)

"Various provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act impede state sovereignty and individual liberty, limiting states' ability to chart their own course on matters relating to health care. Holding the entire Act unconstitutional would thus vindicate Amici Curiae's missions."  MORE >>

111-Page Report by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: New Directions to a Healthier America (PDF)

111 pages. Excerpt: We found the strongest evidence for interventions that can have a lasting effect on the quality of health and life in programs that promote early childhood development and that support children and families. Therefore, many of our recommendations aim to ensure that our children have the best start in life and health. Along with social advantage and disadvantage, health is often passed across generations. Strategies for giving children a healthy start will help ensure future generations of healthy adults. This is indeed a wise long-term investment of scarce resources.

MORE >>

Make Original Medicare the Foundation for Health Care Reform

Excerpt: [O]riginal Medicare stands as a shining example of a needs-based program that has consistently served the public interest. Despite being weakened by privatizing, it gives us a solid foundation for real health care reform, when access to necessary health care is even more difficult than in the 1960s. It is time to expand Medicare as a social insurance program for all Americans through a single risk pool of all 300 million of us. This is the most efficient, fair and sustainable way to insure us all against the costs of illness and injury, coupled with the strengths of our private delivery system.  MORE >>

International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Comment Letter to DOL on Proposed Form T-1 (PDF)

16 pages; submitted May 5, 2008. Excerpt: The purpose of this submission is to identify for [the Office of Labor-Management Standards] significant points which support the reinstatement of the exclusion contained in prior T-1 regulations whereby information for Trust Funds covered by ERISA and [that are required to] file Form 5500 need not be reported on the T-1 Form.  MORE >>