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January 20, 2003 - 7,947 subscribers
Today's sponsor: EBIA's Group Health Plans: Federal Mandates Other Than COBRA & HIPAA
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Supreme Court to Hear Case on Maine's Discount Drug Law
Excerpt: "Maine legislators passed a groundbreaking law designed to lower drug prices for state residents without insurance coverage, but a drug industry legal challenge has blocked it from going into effect. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on an appeal." (AP via Washington Post)
Sick Days Pay Off for Some City of Dallas Retirees
Excerpt: "Saving sick days can help you at retirement-- especially if you're a long-term government employee. But if you work for a business, it's likely that accumulating sick days won't bring a payoff. The issue of cashing in on sick days has become a big one in Dallas. Mayor Laura Miller argues that the city can't afford to keep its sick-leave benefit that allows city workers to accumulate up to six months of sick leave and be paid for up to three months of that time upon retirement." (The Dallas Morning News via International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans)
Corporate Chaplains Keep the Faith with Employees
Excerpt: "Of the some 770 employees, [Gerald Rodgers] knows all of them by face, most by name. He not only knows their jobs, but also the names of their nearest and dearest, their stresses, struggles, concerns. At the company, Rodgers isn't the CEO. He isn't even a manager. He is the company chaplain." (BenefitNews.com)
Reducing the Costs of Poor-Quality Health Care Through Responsible Purchasing Leadership (PDF)
90 pages. Excerpt: "These quality problems not only exact a human toll in terms of lost lives and pain and suffering, but they also create a huge economic burden in terms of both the direct costs of treating complications and the indirect costs of lost productivity and premature death.... Private purchasers absorb about one-third of these costs. In fact, we estimate that poor-quality health care costs the typical employer between $1,700 and $2,000 per covered employee each year." (Midwest Business Group on Health)
Consumer-Directed Health Plans Gaining Wide Acceptance
Excerpt: "Three years after introduction, consumer-driven health (CDH) plans are gaining widespread acceptance among some of the nation's largest and most prestigious employers, who are hoping the new design will encourage patients to spend health benefit dollars more wisely." (BenefitNews.com)
Opinion: the Unmanaging of Health-Care Costs
Excerpt: "By the end of the [1990s], the market power of managed care had been clipped to the point that it was declared dead. Managed care never really had a chance to learn from its early mistakes and improve. For Americans, the bounty from this 'victory' will be double-digit premium increases and greater cost sharing by patients as far as the eye can see." (Los Angeles Times; one-time registration required)
Opinion: Senator Feinstein Joins Bush, Ignores Data on Malpractice Caps
Excerpt: "Harvey Rosenfield, author of California insurance reform initiative Proposition 103, said today that Senator Feinstein has betrayed innocent victims of medical negligence and ignored the facts about California's medical malpractice caps. Senator Feinstein joined with President Bush and the insurance industry [on January 16, 2003] in calling for severe restrictions on malpractice victims' legal recovery." (The Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights)
New Hampshire School District Makes Domestic Partner Health Coverage Available
Excerpt: "The Governor Wentworth Regional School District will soon make health care coverage available to same sex domestic partners of its employees. The result of an earlier collective bargaining agreement, the change provides same sex or common law partners and their children the opportunity to pay into the district employee's health insurance plan, according to Superintendent John Robertson." (Foster's Online)
Why Have Americans Become More Obese?
Working paper, temporarily available for downloading from SSRN.com for $5. Excerpt: "Americans have become considerably more obese over the past 25 years. This increase is primarily the result of consuming more calories. The increase in food consumption is itself the result of technological innovations ..." (National Bureau of Economic Research)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
SEC Lumps Executives In With Employees, in New Stock Blackout Regulations
Excerpt: "Corporate executives will be banned from buying or selling company stock during periods when employees cannot trade the shares held in their retirement accounts, federal regulators decided Wednesday." (AP via Society for Human Resource Management)
Book Shows CEO Pay, Profits Link Is Weak
Excerpt: "During the boom years of the late 1990s, many of the nation's biggest companies justified lavish option grants to chief executives as a reward for delivering equally out-sized earnings. Not so, say the authors of a new book, who scrutinized almost a decade of regulatory filings by bricks-and-mortar corporations and came to the conclusion that the bottom line has failed to keep pace with executive pay." (Reuters via New York Times; one-time registration required)
Senators Renew Attack on Stock Options Accounting
Excerpt: "Two senior U.S. senators have renewed their assault on the accounting treatment of employee stock options, calling them the '800-pound gorilla' that has yet to be captured by corporate reform." (Reuters via Forbes.com)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
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for Pre-Paid Legal Services Inc.
in ALL STATES
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for Alliance Benefit Group of Illinois, Inc.
in IL
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for Transamerica -The Winning Organization
in CA
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for Primary Consulting, Inc.
in ALL STATES
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