| BenefitsLink Welfare Plans Newsletter |   |
January 15, 2003 - 7,947 subscribers
Today's sponsor: Thompson Publishing Group Inc.
(Click on company name or banner to learn more.)
See Why Thousands of Benefits Administrators turn to the Guide for Compliance Do all your HR and benefits staffers know what they must do to protect the privacy of employees' medical records? If they don't, they need to --and soon. The EMPLOYER'S GUIDE TO HIPAA PRIVACY REQUIREMENTS is the ONLY comprehensive, continuously updated publication that's guaranteed to help employers tackle HIPAA's complex medical privacy rules. See why thousands of your colleagues turn to the GUIDE in designing and running their HIPAA compliance programs. Try the GUIDE risk free ... Click above.
(Help BenefitsLink to provide this newsletter at no charge to you -- our sponsors pay your way. Remember to visit them periodically; we try to make sure their products and services will be of interest to you. Thanks! --Editor)
Supreme Court Hears Arguments in 'Any Willing Provider' HMO State Regulation Case
Excerpt: "The Supreme Court was told Tuesday that states cannot force managed care companies to give patients broader choices of doctors and other medical providers, although about half the states are trying to do that. Only Congress has the authority to regulate employee benefits, said Robert Eccles, the attorney for a group of HMOs and an industry trade association." (AP via Yahoo! News)
Health Insurance Association Urges Supreme Court to Find ERISA Preempts 'Any Willing Provider' Laws
Excerpt: "Donald Young, MD, president of the Health Insurance Association of America [said] 'This issue is vital to millions of Americans who rely upon employer-sponsored health insurance ... If the Supreme Court allows Kentucky's so-called 'any willing provider' provision to stand, it will limit competition among medical providers, hinder the assurance of high quality care, and remove an effective and beneficial approach to containing the current explosion in health care costs.'" (Health Insurance Association of America)
Health Insurance: Who Needs It, Anyway?
Excerpt: "Many [unemployed persons], because they are single and without children, take a chance on not getting seriously ill or injured, a decision some experts say isn't totally foolish. 'It's not a bad bet,' said Len Nichols, an economist ... 'For healthy 20- and 30-year-olds, the immortals, the bet makes sense to them,' he said. 'But if they do get the worst-case scenario, like cancer, they aren't covered, and taxpayers end up covering their bets.'" (AP via mcall.com)
Dallas Get Opposition Over Proposal to Eliminate Payment of Back Sick Pay Time Upon Retirement
Excerpt: "A battle over sick-leave benefits has demoralized city workers and threatened Dallas' ability to attract new talent, employees told a City Council committee Monday. At issue is a city policy that allows employees to accrue up to six months of unused sick leave and to be paid for as much as three months of sick time when they retire." (The Dallas Morning News; free registration required)
Retention-Getter: Make Employees More Physically Comfortable on the Job
Excerpt: "Developments in employee comfort are not confined to just work station equipment-- even the very walls themselves [of some employers] are modular and adjustable." (American Banker via Society for Human Resource Management)
Calculating the Costs of Employee Absences
Excerpt: "[M]any employers are reevaluating their absence management programs and questioning the effect of lost productivity on the bottom line. Problem is, it's not easy to puzzle out how their efforts stack up against those of industry peers." (BenefitNews.com)
American Airlines Employees Asked to Take Fewer Sick Days
Excerpt: "American Airlines' top executive wants employees to take less sick leave, a move he said could save the troubled carrier hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Don Carty, the airline's chief executive, said in a recorded message to employees Monday that on a typical day last year, more than 5 percent of American's work force was out sick. The cost totaled $1 million every day, he said." (The [Fort Worth, Tex.] Star-Telegram)
Group Says Health Insurance Costs, Though Rising, Are Not Shifting from Employers to Employees
Press release; includes link to 5-page PDF document (full report). Excerpt: "A new study by the Employment Policy Foundation finds that recent increases in employee health insurance costs do not represent a shift in cost from employer to employee, but reflect the larger trend toward escalating health care costs." (Employment Policy Foundation)
Unions Lay Down Marker on Healthcare Costs
Excerpt: "On the frigid dark Tuesday morning, the only warmth provided by barrels of fire, Patrick Ryan picked up a picket sign at the General Electric plant in Lynn, Mass., and fired what he believes is the first salvo in a renewed fight to preserve American workers' healthcare benefits. 'This isn't just about GE, it's about the healthcare system in the country as whole ... It's radically broken and people are beginning to recognize that.'" (The Christian Science Monitor)
GE Strike Over Health Plan Marred by Striker's Accidental Death
Excerpt: "Thousands of General Electric Co. workers went on strike Tuesday to protest higher out-of-pocket health costs, even as they mourned the death of a picket struck by a police car. The two-day strike -- the first national walkout at GE since 1969 -- officially began at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday at plants that manufacture everything from consumer appliances to jet engines." (AP via New York Times; free registration required)
White-Collar Retirees Picket GM Auto Show Over Higher Co-Pays
Excerpt: "Some of the protesters carried signs calling for a boycott of GM products as thousands of people passed them Tuesday on their way into Cobo Hall. 'They promised us health care, they promised us periodic increases in pensions, and that ain't happening,' said Gerald McKouen, 81, a former Oldsmobile Division employee from Lansing." (AP via MLive.com)
Nine States, Washington, D.C., Organize Not-For-Profit Group To Help Control Drug Spending
Excerpt: "Nine states and the District of Columbia have announced that they will form a joint not-for-profit organization to create preferred drug lists and manage prescription drug benefits for state employees and Medicaid beneficiaries, the New York Times reports.... Peter Shumlin, chair of the National Legislative Association on Prescription Drugs, said the new organization's preferred drug list will foster competition with private PBMs, the Times reports." (KaiserNetwork.org)
Opinion: Bush Should Blame Malpractice Insurers for Cost Increases, Not Medical Malpractice Victims
Excerpt: "To reduce the malpractice premiums physicians pay, President Bush should limit profiteering by malpractice insurers, not restrict legal recovery by innocent victims, the Foundation For Taxpayer and Consumer and Rights (FTCR) said today." (The Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights)
Doctors Divided on Benefits, Drawbacks of Direct-To-Consumer Drug Ads, Survey Indicates
Excerpt: "Doctors believe that direct-to-consumer drug advertisements have both positive and negative effects on physician-patient relations, according to preliminary results of an FDA survey of 500 doctors ..." (KaiserNetwork.org)
Dramatic Jump In Health Costs Will Spur Major Initiatives To Cut Spending
An 8.7% increase in health care spending in 2001 is the fastest growth in a decade and is another sign of the waning influence of managed care, according to an annual government report released on January 8 and published in the January/February issue of Health Affairs. The U.S. health care budget topped $1.4 trillion in 2001, up from $1.3 trillion in 2000, with the primary causes cited as growing Medicaid, hospital, and prescription drug costs. (SpencerNet)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
Society of Actuaries: Movie's Portrayal of Actuaries as Math-Obsessed Wonks is '97.28892% Incorrect'
Excerpt: "Schaumburg, IL - 'About Schmidt,' the new film starring Jack Nicholson as a retired actuary and portrays actuaries as math-obsessed, socially disconnected individuals with bad comb-overs, is '97.28892% incorrect' says a spokesperson for the Society of Actuaries, the largest professional body of actuaries worldwide, with over 17,000 members." (Society of Actuaries)
AOL's Steve Case Opts to Step Down Without Golden Parachute
Excerpt: "Unlike most fallen corporate titans, AOL Time Warner Chairman Steve Case will not be exiting with a golden parachute worth millions. The troubled media giant is under no obligation to pay Case severance because he has no employment contract. Case chose not to negotiate an exit package prior to this week's announcement that he's stepping down as chairman ..." (USA Today)
New Accounting Board Rewards Its Members More Pay Than President Bush
Excerpt: "In their first official act, members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board -- created by Congress to ride herd on the nation's accountants -- decided to hand themselves an annual salary of $452,000 and to offer an even higher salary of $525,000 a year to its yet-to-be- named chairman. Salaries this high get noticed, especially in a town where the Big Man himself, the president of the United States, earns $400,000 ..." (Graef Crystal on Bloomberg.com)
Stock Option Handcuffs: Why Cash-Rich companies Like Dell Don't (and Won't) Pay Dividends
Excerpt: "Supporters of eliminating taxes on dividends argue that tweaking the internal revenue code will uncork a reservoir of dollar bills from corporate treasuries, where they've been gathering dust and low interest, and into the pockets of shareholders, where they rightfully belong... To forestall the inevitable dilution caused by options, company boards authorize officials to buy back shares regularly [using company cash that otherwise might be used to pay dividends]." (Daniel Gross on MSNBC.com)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Implementation Analysts-
for CitiStreet
in FL
Benefit Systems Analyst
for CitiStreet
in FL
Lead Benefit Systems Analyst
for CitiStreet
in FL
Benefit Systems Designer
for CitiStreet
in FL
Benefits Manager
for Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc.
in MN
Newly Posted Conferences
(Post Yours!)
NCEO/Beyster Annual Conference: Employee Ownership & Employee Involvement: The Entrepreneurial Edge
in CA
March 26, 2003
National Center for Employee Ownership & The Beyster Institute
Handy Links:
- View Today's Active Message Threads
- Search BenefitsLink
- Using the Web for Employee Benefits Research
- Employee Benefits Library
Feel free to send this email to friends, colleagues or clients, if you copy or forward this email in its entirety (including this boilerplate part). Copyright 2003 BenefitsLink.com, Inc.
Published by:
BenefitsLink.com, Inc.
https://benefitslink.com/about.html
1298 Minnesota Avenue, Suite H
Winter Park FL 32789
(407) 644-4146
Fax: (407) 644-2151
Editor and Publisher: David Rhett Baker, J.D.
Housekeeping: