| The BenefitsLink Newsletter - Welfare Plans Edition |  |
March 22, 2001
Today's sponsor: The COBRA Administrator Handbook (click to order now) (click)
The first and only compliance manual designed specifically for COBRA self-administration. Simple step-by-step format ensures accurate COBRA documentation, efficient record keeping and complete COBRA compliance protection. The only manual written by expert third-party administrators for COBRA nonprofessionals.
Analysis: HIPAA Final Privacy Rules
Excerpt: "Recently the United States Department of Health and Human Services ('HHS') released a final rule (the 'Final Rule') that implements the privacy requirements of the Administrative Simplification Subtitle of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ('HIPAA'). The Final Rule embodies the first comprehensive set of federal regulations that protects the privacy of an individual's health care information.... [B]elow is a summary of the highlights of the Final Rule." (Nixon Peabody LLP)
Bush Seeks Compromise on Patients' Rights
Excerpt: "His foray onto the contentious terrain was challenged immediately by a bipartisan group of House and Senate members -- including the sponsors of the legislation Bush disparaged. Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) said the president misunderstood parts of the bills, such as the extent to which employers who sponsor health insurance would be spared from lawsuits, one of Bush's goals." (Washington Post)
Red Flag Signals Major Jump in Health Care Premiums
Excerpt: "A bellwether for health care costs -- California's giant public employees system -- could see premium rates jump 15% to 18% next year, an ominous sign for employers nationally. That would be the biggest jump in premiums for the California Public Employees' Retirement System since 1992 and is far above the 9.2% average increase it paid for this year." (USA Today)
Transcript of Bush Remarks on Patients Rights Bill to Cardiologists' Convention
Excerpt: "Doctors and their patients should be in charge of medical decisions. I want to sign a patients' bill of rights this year, but I will not sign a bad one. And I cannot sign any one that is now before the Congress. So enacting a patients' bill of rights this year is going to require some different thinking, a new approach, based on sound principles." (Yahoo! Politics)
Kennedy-McCain Exposes Even Physicians To New Lawsuits, Managed Care Lobbyist Says
Excerpt: "The Kennedy-McCain patient protection bill would create new liabilities for physicians, exposing them to new lawsuits for unlimited damages in federal court, a new legal analysis of the proposal finds. The legal opinions, commissioned by AAHP and presented ... by noted legal experts Victor Schwartz and Daly Temchine, together suggest that Kennedy-McCain would lead to a litigation frenzy of unprecedented dimensions, which would leave no member of the health care community untouched." (American Association of Health Plans press release on Yahoo!)
Gephardt Statement on President Bush's Speech on a Patients' Bill of Rights
Excerpt: "The following was released today by the Office of the House Democratic Leader: 'Today, President Bush gave his first speech as President on the issue of a Patients' Bill of Rights. At one point he said, 'We should not approach this year's Patients' Bill of Rights stuck in last year's rut.' The only rut this issue has been in, is the one the Republicans in Congress put it in." (US Newswire, via Yahoo! Politics)
CalPERS Sees Sharply Higher HMO Rates
Excerpt: "The board of the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) on Wednesday agreed to proceed with rate discussions with seven HMOs and to gauge reaction among public employees and other stakeholders to raising co-payments and implementing other benefits design changes." (Medscape; free registration required)
Lawmakers React to Bush Threat on Patients' Rights Bill
Excerpt: "House and Senate sponsors of a bipartisan 'patients' bill of rights' that President Bush threatened to veto Wednesday reacted with disappointment to the president's remarks, but vowed to continue to press their cause.... Aides said after the speech that the president meant to threaten to veto the measure sponsored in the Senate by John McCain, R-Ariz., John Edwards, D-N.C., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and in the House by Reps. John Dingell, D-Mich., and Greg Ganske, R-Iowa." (Medscape; free registration required)
Bush Tells Doctors He Will Not Sign Any Patients' Bill of Rights Currently Before Congress
Excerpt: "Bush said that a federal patients' bill of rights 'must cover all patients and all health plans.' It should guarantee the right of care at the nearest emergency facility.... There should be 'reasonable caps on damage awards' and there should be a 'fair and immediate review when care is denied' by an independent review panel, Bush stated." (Medscape; free registration required)
Bush Backs Patients' Bill of Rights, With Caveat
Excerpt: "President Bush told thousands of cardiologists at a medical convention today that he was ready to secure passage of a patients' bill of rights this year, but warned that he would veto any of the bills now in Congress because they allowed damage awards that 'will drive up health care costs.'" (New York Times; free registration required)
California Department of Managed Health Care Denies Consumer Group Petition
Excerpt: "California's HMO regulator has denied a petition by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights to make public HMO binding arbitration records, claiming he does not possess the authority. In a written response, the consumer group called upon Department of Managed Health Care Director Daniel Zingale to co-sponsor legislation remedying the underlying problem." (Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights)
Small Business Owners Speak Out on Health Care and the Uninsured
Excerpt: "As the Bush Administration and Congress move forward to address the needs of 43 million uninsured Americans, new findings indicate considerable support by small business employers for the use of health tax credits for their employees. These results are particularly significant because employers play a vital role in providing employee health benefits but are often overlooked in discussions about the uninsured." (National Association of Health Underwriters)
Long-Term Insurance Isn't for Everyone
Excerpt: "Nearly 50 percent of women and one-third of men over age 65 will eventually require long-term care. Home care and nursing homes can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, who pays? Medicare was never intended to pay for long-term care. The rich may not like depleting their assets, but they can afford care. Medicaid will pay only if you're impoverished. That leaves most of us in the middle class with a dilemma." (The [Bergen County NJ] Record)
L.M. Richard Dies, Helped Found One of the First Commercial HMOs
Excerpt: "Mr. Richard, a former marketing professor at Wayne State University, was among the group that formed Independence Health Plan in 1978. It was one of the first for-profit HMOs in the country. 'It certainly made every one in the health care field take notice,' said Richard Becherer, a fellow Wayne State faculty member who founded the company with Richard and others." (The Detroit News)
Statement of AARP Executive Director on Court Decision Allowing Employers to Require Arbitration
Excerpt: "It is a tremendous setback in the fight against workplace discrimination. The decision precludes employees who signed an arbitration agreement from going directly to court to seek redress for their rights. Today's decision will adversely affect all employees and is especially bad for older workers, who have much less mobility in the job market than younger workers." (US Newswire)
Court Says Employers Can Require Arbitration of Disputes
Excerpt: "The Supreme Court handed employers a major victory today by ruling that companies can insist that workplace disputes go to arbitration rather than to court. The 5-to-4 decision resolved a disagreement among the lower federal courts about the scope of the Federal Arbitration Act, a 76-year-old law that makes arbitration agreements enforceable in federal court." (New York Times; free registration required)
SEC Issues Exemptive Order Covering Certain Stock Option Repricings
Excerpt: "On March 21, 2001, the Division of Corporation Finance, pursuant to delegated authority from the Commission, issued an exemptive order under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act) for issuer exchange offers that are conducted for compensatory purposes. The order exempts these exchange offers from Rules 13e-4(f)(8)(i) and (ii), the all holders and best price rules, so long as specified conditions are met." (Securities and Exchange Commission)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings (Post Yours!)
| QDRO Specialist | for Towers Perrin in NJ |
| Assistant Director, Client Services | for New York Life Benefit Services LLC in MA |
| Defined Contribution Recordkeeper | for ATR, Inc. in PA |
| Compensation and Benefits Specialist | for TMCpeople.com/The First Church of Christ, Scientist in MA |
| Employee Benefits | for Cherry, Bekaert & Holland, LLP (Certified Public Accountants & Consultants) in VA |
| 401(k) outside sales (wholesaler) representatives | for well-established national insurance companies in CA |
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