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March 24, 2004 - 8,783 subscribers
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(Please visit our sponsors. We try to make sure their products and services will be of interest to you. Thanks! --Editor)
Overview: GASB's Proposed Accounting Standards for Other Postemployment Benefits (PDF)
8 pages. Excerpt: "The following memorandum summarizes proposed accounting standards for Other Postemployment Benefits (OPEB) published by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB)." (Gabriel, Roeder, Smith & Company)

Disability Claims Expected To Jump As Baby Boomers Age
Excerpt: "Disability and health care claims related to arthritis and cancer are expected to double over the next 15 years as the baby boom generation ages, according to new research from MetLife." (BenefitNews.com)

Supreme Court Seems Leery of New Patient Laws
Excerpt: "A majority of the nine justices seemed cool to new patient protection laws in several states. They seemed to agree instead with the insurance industry that HMO patients like Ruby Calad cannot sue their health plans in state courts, where juries are often generous to sympathetic victims." (AP via Washington Post; one-time registration required)

Audio Coverage: High Court Hears Insurers' Challenge
3/23/04. Excerpt: "The Supreme Court hears arguments over the liability incurred by health insurers whose decisions of coverage and medical necessity harm their insured patients. In two cases from Texas, insurers are challenging laws that allow patients to sue them if the patients are damaged by their insurers' medical decisions. NPR'S Nina Totenberg reports." (National Public Radio)

Coverage from Texas: Justices Hear Texas HMO Case
Excerpt: "Fort Worth attorney George Parker Young, representing Juan Davila of Denton and Ruby Calad of Sugar Land, argued that his clients had been wrongfully denied proper care and should be able to sue their HMOs under Texas state law instead of federal law." (Star-Telegram.com)

Good Parenting Leads to Lower Health Costs
Excerpt: "[T]his is the first time that investigators found that the positive influences of kindhearted and responsible parents 'persist throughout adulthood into old age,' spanning 'several decades.' Neglected children had 'increased risk of depressive symptoms and chronic health conditions in adulthood,' according to the study ..." (Washington Times)

Corrected Link: Differences Between HRAs and HSAs-- Beyond the Basics
Excerpt: "This chart compares Health Reimbursement Accounts under the guidance issued in 2002 to the Health Savings Accounts enacted in the Medicare Pres.cription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003. It also looks at how other laws impact the two arrangements." (Greta E. Cowart of Haynes and Boone, LLP)

Senate Bill Would Extend Mental Health Parity Law
Excerpt: "A trade bill currently before the Senate would extend through the end of 2005 tax penalties on employers that do not comply with a 1996 federal law that mandates limited parity for mental health benefits in group health care plans." (Business Insurance)

Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General

Paul Shultz Asked to Stay Another Year at Treasury (PDF)
Treasury is asking Paul Shultz to stay on another year as Director of Rulings and Agreements in the Employee Plans office under the Tax Exempt & Government Entities operating division of the IRS. The announcement was made by Carol Gold at the 3/23/04 Enrolled Actuaries meeting. (Internal Revenue Service)

Report Says Medicare to Go Broke by 2019
Excerpt: "Medicare will have to begin dipping into its trust fund this year to keep up with expenditures and will go broke by 2019 without changes in a program that is swelling because of rising health costs, trustees reported Tuesday." (AP via Washington Post; one-time registration required)

Overview: OASDI Trust Funds-- 2004 Trustees' Projections
Excerpt: "The Trustees of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASDI) programs project in their 2004 report that the combined trust funds are sufficient to pay full benefits for the next 38 years, until 2042.... While the combined trust funds are sufficient to pay full benefits for the next 38 years, the Trustees also report that both OASI and DI programs continue to face long-term deficits." (AARP Research)

Text of Treasury Secretary Snow's Testimony on Latest Social Security Trustees' Report
Excerpt: "This year's report is little changed from last year's report. It shows that the Social Security program is seriously under funded and financially unsustainable in the long run.... The fundamental math of Social Security is inescapable as the large baby boom generation reaches retirement age and the number of workers paying into the system declines significantly ..." (U.S. Treasury Department)

Opinion: Awash in Duplicity?
Excerpt: "In previous columns, I have warned that George W. Bush is in danger of appearing Nixonian -- using Richard Nixon's political methods ... The clearest evidence yet of George W. Bush as Richard Nixon has arisen over the questions of what the White House knew about the cost of the recently passed Medicare drug bill, when did it know it and whether information was actively suppressed that might have defeated the measure in Congress." (Bruce Bartlett in the Washington Times)

Opinion: Awash in Debt
Excerpt: "Despite pages and pages of complex tables and charts, the moral of this story is simple: Social Security and Medicare are promising far more benefits than they can afford." (Matt Moore in the Washington Times)

The Federal Government's Financial Condition and Fiscal Outlook
Excerpt: "America needs to understand the nature and magnitude of a daunting challenge." (David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, in the Journal of Accountancy)

Social Security's 'Death Master File' Can Be Viewed Online
Excerpt: "The Social Security Administration's (SSA) official Death Master File is now available for online searches to support a variety of benefit and HR management functions." (BenefitNews.com)

Does It Pay to Search for G.ay Workers?
Excerpt: "Since by the most generous estimates only 10 percent of the population is g.ay, it's likely that g.ays amount to a similarly small fraction of the nation's workforce. However, that fraction may contain a disproportionately high number of desirable job candidates, since research suggests that g.ays tend to be better educated and more successful professionally than the population as a whole." (Workforce.com)

Same-Sex Marriage in Massachusetts: New Complications for Employers
Excerpt: "The ruling in favor of same-sex marriage by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) may have unintended consequences for employers across the country -- including, ironically, curtailment of domestic partner benefits." (Thompson Publishing Group)

G.ay Unions Could Affect Benefits; Health Insurance, Leave Policies Scrutinized
Excerpt: "The g.ay marriage debate could mean first-of-a-kind changes to employee benefit plans. In some states, change is already afoot, with some companies being required by law to offer health benefits to employees' same-sex spouses." (USA Today)

DaimlerChrysler Halts 'Phantom Share' Pay Plan
Excerpt: "DaimlerChrysler has frozen plans to pay supervisory board members part of their salaries in 'phantom shares' because of legal uncertainty over stock-based rewards, the group said on Tuesday." (Reuters via Washington Post; one-time registration required)

Newly Posted Events

Disease and Pharmacy Management
in Massachusetts on April 16, 2004
presented by New England Employee Benefits Council

International Benefits
in Massachusetts on May 21, 2004
presented by New England Employee Benefits Council

Form 5500 Preparation From the IRS and Auditor's Perspectives
in Massachusetts on April 21, 2004
presented by Worldwide Employee Benefits Network (WEB)

412iNational Teleconferece this Friday!
Nationwide on March 26, 2004
presented by The 412(i) Company

Substance Abuse: To Test or Not to Test? 90-Minute Interactive Audio Conference
Nationwide on April 15, 2004
presented by Thompson Interactive

Law Review Symposium on Employee Benefits Law
in Illinois on April 2, 2004
presented by The John Marshall Law School
Newly Posted Press Releases

Treasury And IRS Propose Guidance On Pension Plan Amendments That Simplify Distribution Alternatives
(U.S. Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service)

Metrics Partners and The McHenry Group Team Up
(Metrics Partners)

Statement of U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao at Meeting of the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees
(U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C.)
Movers and Shakers: Newly Posted Announcements of Promotions and New Personnel
(Post Yours!)

Sean Gultig (TRUSTlynx)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Post a Help Wanted Ad

Defined Benefits Administrator
for PennMont Benefit Services, Inc.
in PA

Dir, Benefits
for Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc
in CA

Defined Contribution Plan Administrator
for Berlin, Ramos & Company, P.A. CPAs,
in MD

Defined Benefit Implementation Specialists
for Constantin Control Associates
in NC, NJ

Retirement Plan Administrator
for Small TPA Firm Established in 1982
in NH

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