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June 16, 2003 - 8,276 subscribers
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Changing Prospects for Medicare Drug Enactment
Excerpt: "After five years of deadlock and partisan warfare, Congress seems more willing than ever before to pass a major overhaul of Medicare and create prescription drug benefits for the nation's elderly. Even the pessimists say that the political landscape has changed abruptly." (New York Times; one-time registration required)
Some Senators Fear Employers Will Drop Retirees' Drug Plans if Medicare Drug Benefit Goes Through
Excerpt: "The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 37 percent of retired employees with employer-sponsored coverage would lose it under the bill, which the Senate Finance Committee approved on Thursday. The bill is scheduled to reach the Senate floor next week, after winning the endorsement of the committee, 16 to 5." (New York Times; one-time registration required)
Employers Struggle to Swallow Rising Costs of Prescription Drugs
Excerpt: "[C]ontributing to increased utilization – in industry parlance – is an almost-cavalier mindset toward drug intake among some consumers and an onslaught of manufacturer advertising that often confuses as much as it informs." (Dallas Morning News via International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans)
Medicare Prescription Drugs Through Private Drug-Only Plans: a Discussion with Actuaries
Excerpt: "Central to the current debate over Medicare prescription drug coverage is the role of private insurance plans in providing drug benefits to Medicare beneficiaries. This report offers views from health actuaries knowledgeable about the Medicare program and the prescription drug debate on key issues that emerge for potential plan sponsors, such as insurers and PBMs, in providing prescription drug benefits to Medicare beneficiaries through private, drug-only plans." (The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation)
Opinion: Some Doubts About the Logic of the Senate's Medicare Drug Coverage Proposal
Excerpt: "You will not find the prescription drug benefit plan approved by the Senate Finance Committee in any textbook on health insurance. The bill has the support of senators from both parties, but its features leave some economists baffled." (New York Times; one-time registration required)
Debit Card Rules Boost FSAs, HRAs
Excerpt: "The new rules ease confusion on legal and financial liability issues surrounding debit cards, which some say will spur more employers to offer and more employees to use them." (BenefitNews.com)
Biotech Medicines Challenge Health Plan Design
Excerpt: "After 13 years of toil and triumph, scientists jubilantly announced the completion of the Human Genome Project last April. But questions are only beginning to arise about how society, including employers and participants in their health benefit plans, will pay for breakthrough therapies resulting from rapid-fire discoveries on the workings of human genetics." (BenefitNews.com)
Court Finds Disability Benefits Not Subject to ERISA Despite Pre-Tax Funding
Excerpt: "EBIA Comment: Many employers that make voluntary products available also permit employee premiums to be paid under their cafeteria or flexible benefit plans. We have long taken the position that doing this can make the voluntary product subject to ERISA because it tends to show employer endorsement." (EBIA Weekly)
Caesarean Delivery Ruled a Serious Health Condition for FMLA Purposes
Excerpt: "A postal worker should have been granted Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave to care for her daughter, who had a Caesarean delivery, according to a recent decision by the federal district court for southern Indiana." (Thompson Publishing Group)
Agencies Plan to Develop Guidance on MHPA, WHCRA, NMHPA, ADEA, and Other Group Health Plan Mandates
Excerpt: "The federal government agencies have recently published their semiannual regulatory agendas--each agency's 'to do' list of regulations expected to be reviewed or developed." (EBIA Weekly)
Health Care Costs Increase for Treatment of Chronic Diseases
Excerpt: "When we talk about the staggering cost of health care--$1.5 trillion a year in the United States--we often forget that one in five people in the United States never goes to the doctor in any given year. So who is responsible for all that spending? It is people with chronic illnesses." (California Health Care Foundation)
Must Our Company Obtain HIPAA Authorization in Order to Help Employee with Healthcare Claim?
Excerpt: "Our Human Resources Manager traditionally has acted as an advocate for employees who have a claim dispute with our health plan's insurer. But now the insurer refuses to talk to the HR Manager without a signed authorization from the employee. Is this really necessary?" (EBIA Weekly (Question of the Week))
Bush Administration Unveils New Rules To Ease Generic Drug Market Entry
Excerpt: "As expected, President Bush on June 12 announced new FDA rules that will limit the ability of brand-name pharmaceutical companies to block the entry of generic medications into the market, the Wall Street Journal reports." (KaiserNetwork.org)
Impact of Association Health Plan Legislation on Premiums and Coverage for Small Employers (PDF)
21 pages; June 2003. Excerpt: "[T]he proposed AHP legislation would have a detrimental impact on small employer premiums, especially for firms with high-cost workers, and would cause a significant number of small employers to drop coverage, thereby increasing the nation's uninsured population." (Mercer, prepared for National Small Business United)
Mental Health Parity Movement Loses Steam
Excerpt: "The current parity legislation, the Senator Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act, would bar certain employer health plans with medical and mental health benefits from imposing unequal limits on mental benefits." (Knight Ridder-Tribune via the Bradenton [Fla.] Herald)
Maine Senate Passes Private Insurance Premium Tax Bill to Cover Uninsured
Excerpt: "The controversial bill, approved by the Senate on a 20-14 vote, was rejected by the state House [on Thursday, June 12] 95-46. The Senate sent the bill back to the House, which could schedule another vote." (Modern Healthcare)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
American Airlines' Parent Board Declines to Give Departed CEO Added Severance
Excerpt: "Don Carty, the AMR Corp. chief executive who resigned in April, will not receive a severance package from the company, airline officials said Friday.... Carty will, however, receive more than $8 million after-tax from a controversial bankruptcy-proof executive retirement plan -- a program that helped spark the employee revolt that led to his resignation." (Fort Worth Star-Telegram via NewsAlert.com)
Text of Schwegmann Grocery Decision on Appeal; Grocer Violated ERISA Using Unvested Voucher Benefit (PDF)
27 pages. Musmeci v. Schwegmann Giant Supermarkets, Inc., No. 02-30246 (5th Cir. 6/11/2003). Excerpt: "[SCSM, the grocery store chain partnership,] did not set up a trust to fund the Voucher Plan. Rather, the Voucher Plan was funded out of the partnership's general revenue.... [I]n 1997, it sold the business. A week before the sale, Mr. Schwegmann sent a letter to all voucher recipients informing them that they would no longer receive vouchers because of the sale of the business." (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, via FindLaw.com)
The Accounting Treatment of Employee Stock Options
Link to prepared testimony of witnesses at June 3, 2003 hearing. Witnesses include David Dreier, U.S. House of Representatives; Anna G. Eshoo, Member, U.S. House of Representatives; Deborah Nightingale, Sun Microsystems; Robert H. Herz, Financial Accounting Standards Board; Paul A. Volcker, International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation Trustees; Craig R. Barrett, Intel Corporation; Roderick M. Hills, Hills & Stern; James K. Glassman, American Enterprise Institute. (U.S House of Representatives Committee on Financial Security, Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises)
Overview: IRS Proposes Regs for Statutory Stock Options (PDF)
4 pages. Excerpt: "The new proposed regulations clarify that ownership interests other than capital stock are treated as stock for purposes of these rules, and that options can be issued on stock of C corporations, S corporations, foreign corporations, and limited liability corporations that have elected to be treated as corporations for federal income tax purposes." (Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Fun & Challenging DC Compliance Position
for Louis Kravitz & Associates, Inc.
in CA
Senior/Principal Administrative Analyst
for UC Office of the President
in CA
Lead - Benefit Administrator
for Del Monte Foods
in CA
Retirement Plan Administrator
for Jones & Roth P.C.
in OR
401(k) Administrator
for Penret Services, Inc.
in MA
Retirement Plan Analyst - Compliance
for Invesmart
in ME
Newly Posted Conferences
(Post Yours!)
Troubleshooting the 2002 Form 5500
in ALL STATES
July 9, 2003
Thompson Publishing Group
CEBS Course 1-Employee Benefits: Concepts and Health Care Benefits
in ALL STATES
August 25, 2003
IFEBP/CEBS Program
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