| The BenefitsLink Newsletter - Welfare Plans Edition |  |
March 15, 2001
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Health Plans Take Steps to Implement New Federal Standards for Electronic Transactions
Excerpt: "Health plans, providers, and clearinghouses -- organizations that convert transactions from nonstandard to standard -- are required to comply with the [use of electronic data interchange (EDI)] transaction standards by October 16, 2002. Small health plans may delay compliance until October 16, 2003." (Medscape; free registration required)
Bush Pressed to Delay Privacy Rule
Excerpt: "The health industry wants the Bush administration to rewrite medical privacy rules issued by the previous White House, arguing the regulations would delay help to patients." (Washington Post)
New Split-Dollar Guidelines
Excerpt: "The IRS is back on the warpath against split-dollar life insurance arrangements, but it is not yet clear whether its path will win the war. Split-dollar is whole life insurance in which two parties, usually an employer and an employee, share, or 'split,' one or more of the policy's features, e.g., splitting the cost of the premiums, the policy's death proceeds, the policy's cash value." (Nixon Peabody LLP)
Voluntary Severance Payments: a Risk Even to Promise You Won't Offer a Benefit
Excerpt: "A voluntary severance plan can be an effective tool for reducing headcount. Unfortunately, the 'heads' you are counting are sometimes reluctant to bite on your initial offer if they suspect a richer one may follow." (Nixon Peabody LLP)
Patient Satisfaction With and Knowledge of Their Prescription Drug Coverage
Excerpt: "Objective: To assess member satisfaction with the prescription-drug component of prepaid health insurance plans and determine aspects of drug coverage about which these members had misconceptions or were uninformed." (Medscape; free registration required)
Senate Plans Bush-Friendly HMO Bill
Excerpt: "Senators are developing a version of the patients' bill of rights that would permit lawsuits only in federal court, as President Bush has insisted." (Associated Press, via Yahoo! News)
HMOs' Failure To Tame Costs Spurs Quick-Fix Replacements
Excerpt: "On Monday, the second report in less than a week confirmed that managed care is failing at one of its fundamental goals: holding down health-care costs.... And early signs show that the solutions under consideration would make patients painfully aware of the cost of modern medicine. Among the possibilities: Shift premium burden ... Raise co-pays and deductibles ... Provide tiered drug benefits ... Set a defined contribution." (USA Today)
Health Industry Wants Privacy Rules Delayed
Excerpt: "Key elements of the healthcare industry want the Bush administration to delay medical records confidentiality rules -- already pushed back from February to April -- for several more months, officials said on Wednesday." (Medscape; free registration required)
Economists Warn Drug Prices Continue To Speed Up Health Spending
Excerpt: "Fueled by a nearly 17 percent increase in prescription drug spending, expenditures for health care in the U.S. topped $1.2 trillion in 1999, up 5.6 percent from the prior year, according to government economists." (insure.com)
New Health Insurance Trend Triggers Charlotte NC Start-up
Excerpt: "A Charlotte company hopes to be among the first in the Southeast to offer a new insurance product to help employers cut health insurance costs. Founded by a group of industry veterans and funded by an undisclosed amount of private investment, Empowered Benefits hopes to capitalize on a trend in health insurance called defined contribution." (Health Care Journal; free registration required)
Opinion: Consider National Health Insurance
Excerpt: "Upping patients' share of premiums and medical bills won't slow skyrocketing health-care costs. But it will penalize the sick and keep millions away from life-saving care. Americans already pay more out-of-pocket for health care than patients in any other country. Yet we have the world's highest health-care costs." (USA Today)
Health Plans Say Doctors Don't Support Right to Sue
Excerpt: "Three out of four physicians prefer an independent appeals process over lawsuits as a way for patients to resolve disputes with their health plans, according to a survey released today by the American Association of Health Plans, the nation's largest HMO industry group." (Reuters via Excite News)
Senators Introduce Tax Credit Plan for Individually-Owned Health Insurance
Excerpt: "More than 20 million Americans who currently lack health insurance could gain coverage under a tax credit proposal introduced Wednesday by a bipartisan group of senators." (Medscape; free registration required)
Report: Slash Federal Benefits, Reap Government Savings
Excerpt: "The government could save billions of dollars by slashing federal health and retirement benefits, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office." (GovExec.com)
Withholding on Disqualifying Dispositions
Excerpt: "Here's a triumph of intellectual consistency over common sense: IRS Notice 2001-14.... , the IRS has decided that disqualifying dispositions not only give rise to ordinary income but also are subject to income tax withholding and FICA and FUTA taxes. This is a great theory until one considers that when an employee decides to sell stock, it is invariably in a transaction over which his employer has neither control nor notice ..." (Nixon Peabody LLP)
Got a New Job? Better Check That Non-Compete Clause
Excerpt: "... recent court cases, driven in part by high-tech concerns, seem to be eating away at the concept of employee mobility ... Some of the legal activity appears to be no more threatening than an application of traditional non-compete clauses that are recognized by most states. But other cases indicate that the courts are closing the noose around the practice of job-hopping and, in seeking to protect legitimate trade secrets, may hinder technological progress." (Knowledge@Wharton)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings (Post Yours!)
| 401(k) Administrator | for Benefit Management Inc. in MA, RI |
| Account Manager | for Benefit Plan Services, Inc. in GA |
| Stock-Based Executive Compensation Attorney | for Law Firm with 20 Exec.Comp/Benefits attorneys in CA, CO, DC, WA |
| Pension Consultant | for Universal Pensions, Inc. in MN |
| Sr. Compensation and Benefits Analyst | for Comdisco, Inc. in IL |
| Broker/Dealer Compliance Officer | for Compliance Division in CA |
Newly Posted Conferences (Post Yours!)
| NAGDCA 2001 Regional Meeting | in CA on April 30, 2001 presented by National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators |
Newly Posted Press Releases
| NAGDCA Announces Support of Reintroduction of Portman/Cardin Legislation (National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators) |
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