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March 1, 2004 - 8,783 subscribers
Today's sponsor: Employee Benefits Institute of America Inc. (EBIA)
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Are Your Health Plans in Compliance? HIPAA imposes far-reaching privacy requirements on health plans, plan administrators, and insurers--and EBIA is here to help! Our HIPAA Portability & Privacy manual is the best and most reasonably-priced resource for HIPAA privacy compliance. The manual is also the best resource on HIPAA portability (special enrollments, PCEs, certificates of creditable coverage, and nondiscrimination)! For more information, visit http://www.ebia.com
(Please visit our sponsors. We try to make sure their products and services will be of interest to you. Thanks! --Editor)
California Grocery Workers Vote To Approve Contract, Ending Strike Over Changes To Health Benefits
Excerpt: "Workers will have to make copayments for certain medical services (Los Angeles Times, 3/1). Under the previous contract, they only had to make $10 copays for physician visits and pres.criptions." (KaiserNetwork.org)
Longest U.S. Grocery Strike Ends with Deal
Excerpt: "[C]urrent union members will not have to make any contributions toward their health care plans in the first two years and will only need to pay from $5 to $15 in the third year if health care contributions in reserves do not cover the costs ... However, the contract creates a second, lower tier of supermarket employees who will receive less pay and inferior benefits." (Reuters via New York Times)
California Grocery Strike's Settlement Is Setback for Unions, Experts Say
Excerpt: "The inclusion in the contract of a two-tier compensation scale, in which new hires top out at a lower level of wages and benefits than current employees in the same jobs, hurts the United Food and Commercial Workers union, experts said." (The Orange County Register via Miami Herald)
Calif. Grocery Pact May Presage Fight in D.C. Area
Excerpt: "The Southern California and New England agreements may well be models for the accords that Safeway Inc. and Giant Food are expected to pursue as they jointly negotiate a contract set to expire March 27 with 18,000 Washington area workers, according to analysts." (Washington Post)
Overview: Ruling Addresses Availability of Extended COBRA Coverage After Medicare Entitlement
Excerpt: "On February 13, 2004, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued a Revenue Ruling that addresses the length of COBRA coverage for a spouse of a employee when the employee, after leaving employment, becomes entitled to Medicare because he or she reaches age 65. This Revenue Ruling, 2004-22, is significant because it provides an interpretation of COBRA that may differ from the way many group health plans have applied the COBRA statute." (The Segal Company)
Federal Agency Urges States to Adopt Disease Management Programs, Will Share Costs
Press release (2/26/04). Excerpt: "The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today urged states to adopt programs to help those with chronic illnesses better manage their diseases. In a letter to state Medicaid officials, the agency announced it would match state costs of running so-called 'disease management' programs aimed at improving health outcomes while lowering the medical costs associated with these diseases." (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)
Healthcare Costs Humble Even Biggest Buyers
Excerpt: "CalPERS spends $3.9 billion a year for its members, who work in state government offices and hundreds of local city governments and agencies, including numerous school districts. Yet despite being the nation's third-largest buyer of health care, ranking behind only the federal government and General Motors, CalPERS has found its negotiating power increasingly limited, forcing it to come up with new strategies for keeping its health coverage affordable." (California HealthCare Foundation)
Florida Employer Coalition To Negotiate With PBMs, Insurers To Save Money on Pres.cription Drugs
Excerpt: "The Central Florida Health Care Coalition, a group of large Florida employers, last week announced that it is developing a pres.cription drug group purchasing plan in an effort to 'save ... millions of dollars a year' and gain 'more control over how ... employees are prescribed medications,' the Orlando Sentinel reports." (KaiserNetwork.org)
Overview: FASB Tentatively Decides on Accounting for Medicare Drug Subsidy (PDF)
2 pages. Excerpt: "The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) reached tentative decisions at its two most recent board meetings on how retiree health plan sponsors will have to reflect subsidies available from the federal government under the new Medicare Part D pres.cription drug program." (Milliman USA)
Report Measures Pain of Health Care Costs
Excerpt: "More than 82 percent of organizations in Broward and Miami-Dade counties experienced a premium increase last year, and 35.7 percent responded by raising the employee portion of the premium." (South Florida Business Journal via bizjournals.com; one-time registration required)
Employees Are Learning That Their Decisions Drive Health Care Costs
Excerpt: "[C]osts are driven not by greedy insurance companies but largely by consumer choices. It's been a year since Memphis Business Journal conducted its first ever Employers Health Insurance Survey, an online questionnaire that asked people about their group plans. We repeated the survey this year, with 119 responses from Jan. 23-Feb. 13. The trends are revealing." (Memphis Business Journal via bizjournals.com; one-time registration required)
American Medical Association: Here's Five Ethical Rules for Managed Care Plans
Press release. Excerpt: "An independent research arm of the American Medical Association, The Institute for Ethics, today released an important consensus report on the ethics and fairness issues involved in making decisions concerning which health care products and services and should be covered by insurance. The report indicates that because these decisions are difficult, complex and controversial, five criteria should be considered to ensure that the decisions are made fairly." (American Medical Association)
Beware of Bogus Health Plans
Excerpt: "Nationwide, health insurance scams ... have been sprouting faster than authorities can shut them down. The basic con: Sign up as many people as possible, keep them paying premiums for as long as possible and, when claims get substantial or regulators catch on, close up and move out of town." (AARP Bulletin)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
Are All Consultants Corrupt?
Excerpt: "That's one possible conclusion in the wake of the Enron scandal. According to David Maister, who's been studying professional-services firms for more than 20 years, it's time to clear the air." (Fast Company)
New Ideas Draw Older Workers
Excerpt: "Baptist Health South Florida is beating the perennial hospital problem of unfilled jobs and high turnover by fine-tuning its policies and jobs to appeal to workers over 50." (Workforce.com)
Joint Committee Describes 2005 Budget Provisions Related to Individuals' Savings, Healthcare (PDF)
73-page extract created by BenefitsLink. Full document is 428 pages, at https://benefitslink.com/articles/2005-budget-descrip.pdf (U.S. Congress Joint Committee on Taxation)
Opinion: a Bribe By Any Other Name Smells As Rotten!
Excerpt: "Through their recent inquiry of investment consultants the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has opened the door for potential regulatory activity targeted at addressing unseemly relationships in the investment community between gatekeepers and other service providers." (PLANSPONSOR.com; one-time registration required)
Why Do Americans Work so Much More Than Europeans?
Excerpt: "Americans now work 50 percent more than do the Germans, French, and Italians. This was not the case in the early 1970s when the Western Europeans worked more than Americans. In this paper, I examine the role of taxes in accounting for the differences in labor supply across time and across countries, in particular, the effect of the marginal tax rate on labor income." (National Bureau of Economic Research)
Newly Posted Events
A Vision for Tomorrow's Treasurer -- Managing the Financial and Fiduciary Risks of Retirement
in New York on March 23, 2004
presented by Hewitt Associates LLC
The Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act and Its Impact on Corporate Plans
in Massachusetts on April 6, 2004
presented by International Society of CEBS - Greater Boston Chapter
Newly Posted Press Releases
Labor Department Proposes Rule To Preserve Retirement Savings
(U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C.)
New York Life Insurance Company Agrees to Settle Class Action Lawsuit with Sales Agents
(New York Life Insurance Company)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Retirement Actuarial Associate
for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
in IL
DC/401(k) Plan Administrator
for Fast paced. high quality and quickly growing DC plan administration company
in CT
Director of Compliance Services
for AMVESCAP Retirement, Inc.
in GA
Retirement Plan Sales Director-South-West Region
for First Mercantile Trust/ National Commerce Financial
in NM, OK, TX
Compensation - Associate/Senior Associate
for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
in IL
401(k) Client Service Representative
for ADP TotalSource
in FL
Employee Benefits Paralegal / Administrator
for Iris Bashi Associates, LLC
in NJ
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