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The BenefitsLink Newsletter -
Welfare Plans Edition
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September 24, 2001 - 6,325 subscribers
Today's sponsor: ERISA Compliance for Health & Welfare Plans, by EBIA

(Click on company name or banner to learn more.)

   ERISA Compliance for Health & Welfare Plans is an authoritative
resource for employers, administrators and advisors.
Written by leading employee benefits attorneys, this manual has
all the information you need to bring your welfare benefit plans
into compliance with ERISA.
Always kept current through periodic updates!

(Help BenefitsLink to provide this newsletter at no charge to you -- our sponsors pay our way. Remember to visit them periodically; we try to make sure their products and services will be of interest to you. Thanks! --Editor)

Work World Grapples with Terror's Grip
Excerpt: "Aon is on the front lines of helping employees cope with the tragedy. The insurer is extending on-site counseling indefinitely and encouraging senior executives, who have been busy dealing with human tragedy, to seek counseling. Some healing is expected to begin after two memorial services, one on Monday in New York and one on Tuesday in Chicago." (Chicago Tribune)

Americans Are Skeptical of Patient Protection Legislation That Includes Right To Sue
A survey recently released by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health revealed that the American public is not yet ready to accept unlimited new lawsuits in the health care system. According to the survey, most Americans foresee higher health care costs and fewer employer-sponsored health care plans as a result of proposals to allow new lawsuits against plans. Furthermore, the survey revealed that rising health care costs--and not HMO reform--ranks as the number (Spencernet)

Health Insurance for Federal Employees to Rise 13.3%
Excerpt: "Health insurance premiums for federal employees and retirees will rise an average 13.3 percent next year, the Bush administration said yesterday. The 2002 rates are nearly 50 percent higher than what government workers paid in 1998." (Washington Post)

Aetna Introduces Defined Contribution Health Plan
Excerpt: "The country's largest health insurer has unveiled a new consumer-managed health plan product, which walks employers, and their employees, a step closer to a defined-contribution system for health benefits. [Aetna HealthFund] combines a high-deductible PPO with an employer-funded health savings account to produce a hybrid form of a more traditional defined contribution plan." (Atlanta Business Chronicle)

California, Florida Release State Reports Rating HMO Services
Excerpt: "All 17 [California] HMOs -- which participated in the survey voluntarily -- earned 'high ratings for most indicators' of the quality of physician-patient relationships, and scored the worst in the treatment of chronic conditions, mental illnesses and sexually transmitted diseases." (KaiserNetwork.org)

Bioterrorism, COBRA Among New Health Policy Issues Considered After Terrorist Attacks
An analyst for Congressional Quarterly reports that unpassed legislation would have extended COBRA for laid off airline workers to 78 weeks and included a federal premium subsidy, but may be introduced again. (KaiserNetwork.org)

Severance Plan Protecting Against Corporate Change in Control Is ERISA Plan
Bowles v. Quantum Chemical Co. (7th Cir. 2001). Excerpt: "The Seventh Circuit noted that determining whether a severance plan is covered by ERISA 'is a matter of degree, the assessment of which often requires the court to draw fine lines.' Employers not wishing to wait for a court's minute factual analysis of their severance plans may decide to assume that ERISA applies and comply with ERISA's requirements (including the requirement of a written plan document)." (EBIA Weekly)

Final DOD Regulations Seek To Ensure Adequate Network of TRICARE Prime Providers
The Department of Defense (DOD) has issued final regulations that allow higher provider reimbursement rates when necessary to ensure an adequate network of TRICARE Prime providers and to remedy circumstances in which TRICARE beneficiaries face severe limitations on access to needed health care services. The final regulations appeared in the August 28 Federal Register. (Spencernet)

(Following items are in both editions of the BenefitsLink Newsletter)


CFO Group: Stock Option Accounting Project Could Undermine March Toward Global Accounting Standards
Excerpt: "Financial Executives International (FEI) has consistently warned that [adoption of a rule that would require] companies to treat the issuance of employee stock options as an operating cost could ultimately undermine the ... goal of creating a single set of high-quality, understandable and meaningful global accounting standards." (PR Newswire via IFEBP)




Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings (Post Yours!)
401(k) Investment Educator for ADP, Inc.
in CA, GA
Vice President - Public Sector Recordkeeping for CitiStreet - A State Street and Citigroup company
in FL

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Copyright 2001 BenefitsLink.com, Inc., but you may freely distribute this email newsletter in whole. This newsletter is edited by David Rhett Baker, J.D.