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BenefitsLink Health & Welfare Plans Newsletter

July 5, 2012 Get Retirement News  |  Advertise  |  Unsubscribe  |  Past Issues  |  Search

Employee Benefits Jobs

Group Benefit Enroller
for Principal Financial Group in OH

New Business Consultant
for The Retirement Advantage, Inc. in IL

ERISA Associate
for Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck in CO

Employee Benefits Manager
for County of Sonoma in CA

Benefits Administrator
for TPA Firm in Nashville, TN in TN

NQDC Client Service Manager
for PEN-CAL Administrators - National leader in Executive Benefits Plan Administration in CA

Director Assistant Counsel
for The Standard in OR

Associate Manager, Actuarial - Institutional Income
for Prudential in CT

Vested Interest Senior Relationship Manager
for PNC in PA

Manager of Retirement Services
for McCamish Systems, An Infosys Company in GA

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Webcasts and Conferences

Supreme Court: Video Analysis of Affordable Care Act Decision
Nationwide on July 13, 2012 presented by Faegre Baker Daniels LLP


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Is the Individual Mandate Really Mandatory, Considering the Limited Ability of IRS to Collect Penalties (er, Taxes)? (PDF)
"Ordinarily, the IRS has broad powers to collect taxes from taxpayers. However, because of the intense hue and cry surrounding the individual mandate, the PPACA's drafters imposed specific limitations on the methods that the IRS can use to collect the tax penalty. Those provisions are not a model of clarity, and they have created considerable uncertainty about what, precisely, will happen to a taxpayer who refuses to pay the tax penalty." (Tax Notes)


COBRA: A Little of Everything   [Advert.]

Sponsored by Lorman and BenefitsLink.com

This audio conference will cover the basics as well as the most misinterpreted portions of the regulations -- who has the compliance responsibilities and what an employer must do every day to be in compliance. Discounted price for BenefitsLink readers.


What's Behind the Slowing of Health Care Costs?
"[I]s the recent slowing of health care costs cyclical or structural? Or, more likely, how much of each? And does it have anything to do with health care reform? ... Parsing out what's recessionary and what's likely to stick as the economy climbs back is the question. As one source summarizes it, "This [slowing of health spending] has gone on longer than anyone expected, though the [economic] downturn has too." ... [One economist ascribes] about a third of the slowdown to the transitory impact of the recession, and another dollop to recent cuts in government payment rates to providers and to the drug industry's inability to find pricey new drugs to replace the revenue from generics." (The Huffington Post)

HHS Picks Up Pace in Implementing Health Care Reform Law
"As implementation proceeds, HHS is increasingly releasing technical guidance on its Paperwork Reduction Act website. On July 2, 2012, HHS published notices under the Paperwork Reduction Act of its intention to collect data on four ACA-related topics, and requested public comment on these data collection efforts. Data collections covered by this notice include: Information to be collected from qualified health plans to support qualified health plan certification and information to be collected from health plans outside of the exchange for the operation of the reinsurance and risk adjustment programs; Information that must be provided concerning employees to establish their coverage through the small employer (SHOP) exchanges; Information that small employers must provide to establish their eligibility for offering coverage through the SHOP exchanges; and Information that individuals must provide to support eligibility determinations for premium tax credits, Medicaid, and Children's Health Insur.ance programs, and for enrolling in insur.ance through the exchanges. The employer and employee notices essentially set out the application form that will be used by the exchanges, either in written or electronic form. The notices build on rules and guidance that has already been issued on each of these topics, and have little new information in them." (HealthAffairs Blog)

Americans Evenly Divided Over Desirability of Health Care Law But Most Want Battles to Stop
"Fifty-six percent of Americans believe opponents of the law should 'stop trying to block its implementation and instead move on to other national problems,' according to the poll by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. By contrast, just 38% said those opposed to the Affordable Care Act should 'continue trying to block the law from being implemented.' ... The law, as it has for years, splits the nation, with 41% saying they have a favorable view of the law and 41% saying they have an unfavorable view." (Los Angeles Times)

Fewer Covered by Employer-Sponsored Health Plans
"Only 55.9 percent of adults aged 26 to 64 received employer-provided health insur.ance in 2012, down from 61.6 percent in 2008. Meanwhile, however, the percentage of 18- to 25-year-olds receiving health insur.ance from their employer seems to have stabilized at 31.9 percent since experiencing a drop from 2008 to 2010." (Politico)

The Political Fallout from Health Care Reform
"The Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been polling on attitudes regarding health care since time immemoriam, released new data ... that tells a fascinating story about the political future of the law.... Below are three charts that provide three varying narratives on what the law meant, means and will mean in our political landscape." (The Washington Post)

Effects of Health Care Reform on Coverage of Young Adults
"Young adults were 30 percent more likely to be on their parents' employer policies on average after the staggered implementation commenced in September 2010, compared to before the enactment of the law. This increase in dependent coverage drew from both the uninsured and the otherwise insured." (National Bureau of Economic Research)

[Opinion]

The Supreme Court Upholds the Individual Mandate, But Who Are We Talking About?
"Chief Justice Roberts along with the four dissenters chastise Congress for attempting to penalize the 'inactivity' of 'the young people.' Implicitly, 'the young people' seem to be a homogenous group of healthy and gainfully employed 20- and 30-somethings who simply choose not to buy health insur.ance because they prefer to spend their incomes differently.... Unfortunately, in the real world where most of us live, the uninsured are a far more complex group, and the ACA recognizes this even if five justices won't. Accordingly, to determine who we should be talking about in terms of the object and impact of the individual mandate, we must distinguish myth from reality. Our quest ... evaluates empirical evidence concerning who the uninsured are and why they lack coverage." (HealthAffairs Blog)

[Opinion]

Why the Individual Mandate Won't Work
"First, many uninsured Americans will pay the tax rather than purchase health care insur.ance because the tax will be substantially less than the premiums they would have to pay for insur.ance.... The second reason the mandate will fail is that, even when Americans eschew insur.ance coverage, the IRS has limited authority to enforce the resulting tax.... If stronger IRS enforcement authority is unlikely, the third reason the mandate will fail is that enforcement of the mandate by other government agencies is permanently off the table as a result of the Court's decision." (Prof. Edward Zelinksy in The Huffington Post)

Benefits in General; Executive Compensation

Cypen & Cypen Newsletter for July 3, 2012
Covers employee benefit developments with an emphasis on governmental plans. Topics in this issue include: Obamacare's Individual Mandate Provision Survives Supreme Court Scrutiny; Medicaid Expansion Does Not; Young U.S. Families Do Not Save; The Situation in Longboat Key, Florida; Picking the Right Financial Adviser; Prepare To Retire at 70. (Cypen & Cypen)



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