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Pending PBM-Reform Legislation on Capitol Hill

"[This article provides] a table of currently pending PBM-reform legislation, featuring brief descriptions, links to the texts, and additional information about each bill. [The authors] have highlighted significant bills, such as those introduced by Committee Chairs, bills that have attracted considerable attention from outside the Beltway, and bills that are most likely to make progress on the Hill."

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Capitol Hill Debate Over Drug Prices Shifts to PBMs

"While lawmakers continue to disagree about the pharmaceutical industry's role in soaring prices for medicines, there are bipartisan calls on Capitol Hill to probe the middlemen in the distribution chain: pharmacy benefit managers. The new focus comes amid an effort by the drug industry to shift the blame from drugmakers, which have faced the brunt of the public backlash for exorbitant pricing, by exposing what it considers opaque business practices by PBMs."  MORE >>

Capitol Hill briefing on Social Security, Sept. 5, 2008

Excerpt: Following up on the national release of the Academy's recommendation to raise the Social Security retirement age, this Capitol Hill briefing provided an actuarial perspective and explained the analysis that led to the recommendation.... [The target page has links to the speakers' slides from the Hill briefing; the Academy's recommendation on raising the retirement age; and, more information about the recommendation.  MORE >>

Humor: The Health Practice Council's 2006 Capitol Hill Visits -- The Logic Behind It All (PDF)

4 pages. Excerpt: Despite the general tendency toward caution that pervades Capitol Hill, every once in a while we'd come across a Hill staffer who wasn't afraid to ask for the moon.

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Chairmen Scrap for Upper Hand with Pension Reform on the Hill

Excerpt: Between Senate disputes and uncertainty in the House, K Street has been tossed and turned by the rocky trajectory of pension legislation -- and speculation continues over who's in control of overhauling the nation's employee benefit system.

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Bid to Improve Dental, Vision Benefits for Federal Employees and Retirees Gains Momentum on the Hill

"With Congress planning to recess at week's end, a bipartisan group of Capitol Hill aides is pushing for legislation that would provide enhanced dental and vision benefits to federal employees and retirees. The aides said they hope to get the legislation on the Senate floor by Friday for a vote. Once the Senate has acted, House staff aides plan to line up the bill for approval in mid-November[.]"  MORE >>

Bipartisan Legislators Revive PBM Reform Debate on the Hill

"The PBM Reform Act [HR 4317] ... seeks to ban spread-pricing models in [Medicare] and instead move to a more 'transparent' system that the legislators say will more fairly reimburse pharmacies for the services they provide. In addition, the bill would delink PBM compensation from medication costs within Part D, and establish semi-annual reporting that provides further detail on spending, rebates and formulary decisions for plan sponsors and members."  MORE >>

Mercer CEO Brings Employers' Legislative Priorities to Capitol Hill

"Mercer CEO and President Pat Tomlinson ... focused on two legislative priorities for employers: preserving ERISA's long-standing preemption and protecting current tax incentives for employer-sponsored healthcare and retirement plans. He talked about studies that have shown that for every $1.00 of tax expenditure, multiples of that amount are paid by employers to finance health and retirement benefits. He also discussed the importance of pharmacy data transparency to employers."

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Hill Healthcare Agenda Stalls as Midterm Elections Loom

"[A] short-term funding fix set to run to December probably won't include proposals to extend temporary telehealth flexibilities for employers, improve mental health care and provide more COVID-19 aid.... [A]ction on these issues now isn't likely until late this year in a crowded lame-duck session, complicating the outlook for final passage."

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Portable Benefits Stir Interest on Capitol Hill

"The portable model would allow employers to pay into a benefits pool on a flexible, pro rata basis and give workers the ability to take those benefits with them when they change jobs. Also, part-time employees, who simultaneously work for more than one employer, could accrue benefits from each of them."

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The Fight to Move PBGC Premiums Off-Budget Goes to Capitol Hill

"The Pension and Budget Integrity Act of 2016 ... would ensure any future pension premium increases are only used towards retiree payments from the [PBGC] and not double counted for budget scoring purposes ... It removes a budget gimmick that will help to stabilize single-employer pension plans and provides more certainty for America's companies and their employees."  MORE >>

Fiduciary Rule Grilled on Capitol Hill

"Labor Secretary Perez was just about the only witness called to a recent Congressional hearing to actually defend the DOL's fiduciary redefinition effort.... Each side skillfully outlined dire-sounding warnings about the rule's taking effect or not taking effect, but little additional clarity was produced about the most likely impacts of the new fiduciary rule language."  MORE >>

Support for Executive Compensation Tax Reform on Capitol Hill

"Sen. Ron Wyden (OR) and the Democratic Committee Staff have released a summary report entitled 'How Tax Pros Make the Code Less Fair and Efficient: Several Tax Strategies and Solutions'.... [T]he report broadly endorses a number of proposals offered by other lawmakers ... including: [1] Further restricting the rules dealing with vesting of deferred income and the timing of income recognition; [2] Potential dollar limits/caps on deferred compensation; and [3] Closing perceived loopholes in the application of the Section 162(m) deduction limitation."  MORE >>

ASPPA Head Brian Graff Blasts Retirement Suggestions from Capitol Hill (and Others)

"[E]veryone talks about tax reform and fiduciary regulations, but ... the bigger threat is a failure of policy makers in DC to understand that retirement policy needs to be looked at from a holistic perspective and not from a parochial view within their own committees. For example, a tax committee will look at retirement policy as a pure tax policy analysis and fail to reflect any thinking on what it means for retirement.... There's no committee with the singular responsibility to look at how to focus on pure retirement policy."

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Older Capitol Hill Aides Shocked by Obamacare Prices

"Veteran House Democratic aides are sick over the insurance prices they'll pay under Obamacare, and they're scrambling to find a cure. 'In a shock to the system, the older staff in my office (folks over 59) have now found out their personal health insurance costs (even with the government contribution) have gone up 3-4 times what they were paying before,' Minh Ta, chief of staff to Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), wrote to fellow Democratic chiefs of staff ... 'Simply unacceptable.'"  MORE >>

Obamacare to Hit Home on Capitol Hill

"Staffers who work in lawmakers' personal offices go into exchanges -- but those who work for committees don't. And the lawmakers themselves get Obamacare -- unless they are among the roughly 40 senators and 115 House members on Medicare. And there's a big thorny unresolved question about money: whether members and staffers in exchanges will still get a significant part of their health insurance premiums subsidized by their employer, just like other government workers. If they lose that subsidy, it's like getting a pay cut of several thousand dollars."  MORE >>

In Capitol Hill's Shadow, Health Reform Gets Underway

"If you want to know what health reform in action looks like, here's what you should picture: a nondescript conference room, on the fourth floor of a government building, with about four dozen people sitting in rows of red chairs and one fluorescent light that keeps flickering on and off. No hope, change or death panels to speak of."  MORE >>

Texas Firm Sees 401(k) Loan Gold on Capitol Hill

"Tod Ruble is trying to sell retirement plan insurance that employers say they do not want and their employees may not need.... Since late 2010, he has started up a company, Custodia Financial, and spent more than $1 million pushing for legislation that would allow companies to automatically enroll employees who borrow from their 401(k) plans in insurance that could cost hundreds of dollars a year.... Employers and 401(k) providers say the bill is simply a solution in search of a problem and would just be an added expense for employees."

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Court Affirms Dismissal of In re Citigroup ERISA Litigation and Gearren v. McGraw-Hill Cos., Inc. (PDF)

[The court] joined several sister circuits in officially adopting the Moench presumption of prudence. It also joined the Third Circuit in holding that there is no fiduciary duty to disclose information aboutthe company's financial condition to participants.  MORE >>

McDonald's Health Insurance Coverage Draws Capitol Hill Attention

Excerpt: [Sen. Jay Rockefeller] asked for information on coverages, deductibles, premiums, copayments and other 'out-of-pocket' costs that McDonald's workers pay, and how much they have received in benefits over the past five years, with a deadline of Oct. 15. Also, he wants the company and its insurer to 'describe the business arrangement under which McDonald's allows BCS to sell health insurance products to McDonald's employees.'

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