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May 17, 2004 - 8818 subscribers
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ERIC Urges Sen. Frist to Oppose Substitute Draft to Mental Health Parity Bill
Target page includes link to one-page letter of May 13, 2004. (ERISA Industry Committee)

Text of Substitute Draft to Mental Health Parity Bill
Target page includes link to 24-page document. (ERISA Industry Committee)

CalPERS Sutter Decision Widely Awaited
Excerpt: "At a time of skyrocketing health costs, the nation's medical industry is focused this week on a showdown vote by CalPERS about whether some hospital prices are so high that it's time for patients to go elsewhere." (Sacramento Bee)

Death Spiral or Euthanasia? the Demise of Generous Group Health Insurance Coverage
Excerpt: "[P]revious studies which appeared to detect plans in the throes of a death spiral, may instead have been experiencing an inexorable movement away from a non-preferred product, one that would have been inefficient for almost all workers even in the absence of adverse selection." (National Bureau of Economic Research)

Insurers Deepen Roots of Consumer-Driven Health Care
Excerpt: "This is the first in a four-part series of articles on how the rise of consumer-driven health is affecting insurers, providers, employers and consumers." (BenefitNews.com)

Incentive For Health: Bank Gives Lifestyle Credits
Excerpt: "The bank's TPA of 10 years, Benicomp, proposed a novel approach. The company would raise the deductible in its base, HIPPA-compliant health plan by $2,000. But it would add a supplemental, fully insured, HIPPA-exempt program through which it would offer employees financial incentives in the form of four 'lifestyle credits' to offset the deductible increase." (BenefitNews.com)

Perceptions of the EEOC Ruling Among the 50+ Population
Excerpt: "[M]ore than 7 in 10 (73%) people aged 50 and over disagreed with the EEOC's ruling, including strong majorities of both AARP members (74%) and nonmembers (71%)." (AARP Research)

Exercise Lowers Employers' Health Costs
Excerpt: "Feifei Wang and colleagues at the University of Michigan studied 23,500 workers at General Motors. They estimated that getting the most sedentary obese workers to exercise would have saved about $790,000 a year, or about 1.5 percent of health-care costs for the whole group." (Reuters via Yahoo! News)

Report: U.S. Drug Needs Would Overwhelm Canada
Excerpt: "[Canada] would be unable to meet the demand created if U.S. law allowed greater access. That's the conclusion of a University of Texas-Austin researcher, who studied the issue at the request of two congressmen, using government data from both countries." (USA Today)

State Legislatures Seek Ways To Cut Costs, Reduce Uninsured
State legislatures across the country are looking for ways to combat skyrocketing premium increases and the rising number of the uninsured, according to the quarterly-issued State Health Policy Brief. The report notes that policymakers are trying to help make health insurance coverage more accessible and affordable in the midst of small employer premiums skyrocketing at double-digit rates, individual spending increasing through higher cost-sharing mechanisms. (Spencer Benefits Reports)

Women in the Workforce: a Databook
Includes statistical information about flexible schedules. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor)

Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General

Senate Export Subsidy Repeal Bill Would Restrict Tax Advantages of Nonqualified Deferred Comp Plans
Excerpt: "Legislation passed by the Senate to repeal export tax subsidies that have been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization would reportedly place distribution and investment restrictions on nonqualified deferred compensation plans and prohibit the deferral of gain from the exercise of stock options under deferred compensation arrangements." (CCH News & Information Library)

Bookmark: Employee Benefits Research Guide
Excerpt: "This guide is intended as a starting point for research in the law of employee benefit plans (including welfare benefit plans, such as medical plans and cafeteria plans, and pension plans) at Georgetown Law Library. It includes both primary and secondary materials, in both print and electronic formats." (E. B. Williams Library, Georgetown University)

Corporate Tax Avoidance and High Powered Incentives
Excerpt: "We find that, for the full sample of firms, increases in incentive compensation tend to reduce the level of tax sheltering, suggesting a complementary relationship between diversion and sheltering. As predicted by the model, the relationship between incentive compensation and tax sheltering is a function of a firm's corporate governance." (National Bureau of Economic Research)

Are Perks Purely Managerial Excess?
Working paper. Excerpt: "We ... find evidence that perks are offered most in situations where they are likely to enhance managerial productivity. This suggests that a view of perks that sees them purely as managerial excess is incorrect." (National Bureau of Economic Research)

Same-Sex Marriage In Massachusetts May Require Administrative and Policy Changes (PDF)
4 pages. Excerpt: "The immediate concern for employers is to identify those changes they must implement in order to handle same-sex marriages of their Massachusetts employees. These changes may involve payroll and other human resource information systems (HRIS) and human resource policies." (Mellon's Human Resources & Investor Solutions)

G.ay Spouses Face Maze to Get New Benefits
Excerpt: "On Monday, Massachusetts is expected to become the first U.S. state to sanction full marriage for g.ays and les.bians and human resource executives and lawyers are bracing for a slew of questions from happy same-sex newlyweds about their rights." (Reuters via Washington Post; one-time registration required)

G.ay Couples Apply for Marriage Licenses in Massachusetts
Excerpt: "Against a backdrop of whoops and cheers and a party that spilled onto the streets, g.ay and les.bian couples here began filling out applications for marriage licenses at 12:01 a.m. on Monday, when Massachusetts became the first state in the country to allow them to marry." (New York Times; one-time registration required)

Samuel Iwry Dies at 93; Father of J. Mark Iwry
We extend our deepest sympathies to the family of Mr. Iwry. Excerpt: "Samuel Iwry, 93, a scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls whose life story could rival the plot of an international adventure novel, died of a stroke May 8 ... Survivors include his wife of 58 years, Nina Rochman Iwry, of Baltimore; a son, J. Mark Iwry of Bethesda; and a grandson.' Mark is a former IRS pension official, now with the Brookings Institution: https://benefitslink.com/links/20030116-020318.html (Washington Post; one-time registration required)

The Actuarial Game of Baseball: 'Stat of the Art' (PDF)
Excerpt: "When Billy Beane became general manager of the Oakland A's in 1997, he set about turning conventional baseball wisdom on its ear. With the second lowest payroll in the major leagues, he put together a team of undervalued rejects who came close to breaking the American League record for consecutive wins in 2002. He did it not with advance scouting reports or hunches or gut feelings ... He did it the way any actuary would. With numbers." (Contingencies Magazine)

Newly Posted Events

IFRS 2 Share-Based Payment - An Overview Of The New Standard
Nationwide on May 14, 2004
presented by Ernst & Young, LLP

Required Disclosure of Relative Values of Survivor-Annuity and Proposed Section 411(d)(6) Regulations
in New York on May 20, 2004
presented by WEB (Worldwide Employee Benefits Network) New York Chapter

The Boot Camp on 412i Plans
Nationwide on July 29, 2004
presented by The 412(i) Company

US Health Savings Accounts - What You Need To Know
in California on May 14, 2004
presented by Mercer Human Resource Consulting
Newly Posted Press Releases

NCPERS Briefs Congressional Staff on EEOC Rule on Retiree Health Benefits
(National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems)

Percentage Of Active Workers In Defined Benefit System Continues To Decline, According To New PBGC Pension Insurance Data Book
(Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC))

IRS Offers Small Businesses New Tools To Help Manage Retirement Plans
(Internal Revenue Service (IRS))

H.R. 4279 Will Combat Rising Health Costs, Encourage Greater Retirement Saving
(American Benefits Council)

ACLI Opposes SEC Initiative on Mandatory Redemption Fees in Mutual Funds
(American Council of Life Insurers)

Treasury Secretary Snow Hails Passage Of Health Care Initiatives That Address Affordability And Help Uninsured
(U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C.)

Statement of U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao On U.S. House Passage of Small-Business Health Plans
(U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C.)

American Express Retirement Services Large Market Client Base Now 100 Percent On BlueStar® Platform Client Migrations Completed Using Patent Pending, Intra-day Conversions, Legacy System Decommissioned
(American Express Retirement Services)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Post a Help Wanted Ad

Manager of Benefits
for Diversified Entertainment Company In New York City
in NY

Pension Installation Project Manager-CCI
for Transamerica
in CA

Sr. Manager, Account Management
for CitiStreet
in NJ

ERISA & Compliance Consultant
for Gallagher Benefit Services, Inc.
in MA

ERISA Associate
for Trucker Huss, APC
in CA

Employee Benefits Assistant
for Trucker Huss, APC
in CA

System Benefits Manager
for Providence Health System
in WA

Annual Plan Reporting Administrator
for The Vanguard Group
in PA

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