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July 22, 2004
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The monthly newsletter with useful information for today’s business owner. Delivered each month via email in PDF format, Executive Perspectives provides insights for the business owner, with an emphasis on the smaller businesses. Articles may address issues in: * Employee Benefits * Compensation * Retirement & Pension Plans * * Key Legislative and Regulatory News * as well as other topics of interest for today’s business owner. For more information and to view a sample, click above.
(Please visit our sponsors. We try to make sure their products and services will be of interest to you. Thanks! --Editor)
Present Law and Analysis Relating to Tax Benefits for Higher Education (PDF)
50 pages. Excerpt: "The Senate Committee on Finance has scheduled a public hearing on July 22, 2004, on the role of higher education financing in strengthening U.S. competitiveness in a global economy. This document ... includes a description of present law and an analysis relating to tax benefits for higher education." (U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on Taxation)
More Company Cafeterias Offering Healthier Choices
Excerpt: "The better-for-you food trend has not only prompted a recent flood of new products on grocery shelves and restaurant menus, but it's also pushing institutional food service companies to do some serious menu revisions." (Washington Post; one-time registration required)
Anticipating SB2 -- the California Health Insurance Act of 2003
Excerpt: "[California employers] that are contemplating benefit design changes for 2005 and 2006 should not make any changes that would limit their flexibility in responding to this law if it were to go into effect on January 1, 2006." (Watson Wyatt)
Success With Consumer-Driven Health Care Strategies Linked to Overcoming Disconnects With Employees
Excerpt: "Employers implementing consumer-driven health care strategies to help contain rising health care costs will need to overcome increasingly negative employee perceptions of health care benefits for these programs to be successful, according to a new survey by Towers Perrin." (Towers Perrin)
Health Savings Accounts: Myth vs. Fact
Excerpt: "Myth: HSAs will not help to reduce the numbers of uninsured, because people without insurance coverage will be unable to afford an HSA policy. Fact: HSAs have already reduced the number of uninsured Americans." (National Center for Policy Analysis)
Health Savings Accounts Regulatory Update (PDF)
3 pages. Excerpt: "Over the past several months, the federal government has continued to release Health Savings Account (HSA) guidance at a rapid pace. This Alert describes the guidance issued by federal government agencies since March 2004 ..." (Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP)
Rhetoric vs. Reality: Employer Views on Consumer-Driven Health Care
Excerpt: "[E]mployers are concerned that consumer-driven health plans would take considerable effort to implement without much cost savings. They also are skeptical that tiered-provider networks can adequately capture both cost and quality information in a way that is understandable to patients." (Center for Studying Health System Change)
Opinion: the Medicare Drug War-- Drug Companies and HMOs Led an Army of Nearly 1,000 Lobbyists
Excerpt: "To help push through Medicare prescription drug legislation that will safeguard their bottom lines at the expense of America's taxpayers, the pharmaceutical industry, HMOs and related interests spent nearly $141 million on Washington lobbying in 2003. Drug companies, HMOs, their trade associations and industry-funded advocacy groups deployed at least 952 lobbyists to do their bidding on Capitol Hill and at the White House." (Public Citizen)
Meeting to Save Canadian Healthcare System Set for September
Excerpt: "A federal-provincial summit designed to cure Canada's creaking public health-care system will be held in mid-September, Prime Minister Paul Martin said on Wednesday. The universal system eats up C$85 billion (US$64 billion) a year and, despite healthy annual increases, overall costs are soaring and waiting lines are long. Some cancer patients can wait up to three months for crucial tests." (Reuters via Medscape; one-time registration required)
Opinion: Free Health Care. Really?
Excerpt: "Health care can have a zero price to the user, but that doesn't mean it's free or has a zero cost. The problem with a good or service having a zero price is that demand will exceed supply." (Walter E. Williams in the Washington Times)
Democrats Warn of Medicare Drug Costs
Excerpt: "Medicare recipients whose premiums for doctor visits cannot rise more than the annual cost-of-living adjustments in their Social Security checks won't enjoy that same protection when it comes to their medicine." (AP via Washington Post; one-time registration required)
Colorado Is National Model As Public Health Officials Gear Up for Obesity Fight
Excerpt: "The nation's leanest state doesn't just exhort its citizens to keep fit. It shows them how. Is there a lesson for us here?" (Washington Post; one-time registration required)
Looking to Canada, Not Candidates, for Prescription Drugs
Excerpt: "As health care emerges as a hot-button campaign issue, seniors in the upper Midwest travel to Canada, where they pay significantly less for their medications." (Washington Post; one-time registration required)
Insured Show Willingness to Give Up Benefits to Expand Coverage
Excerpt: "Willingness to cover the uninsured -- and pay a portion of the cost -- increased to 66% from 54% after respondents participated in a group deliberation process during which arguments about personal responsibility, community benefit, caring for the vulnerable, and perceptions of personal risk were aired." (Medscape; one-time registration required)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
Text of ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits Q&As with IRS Officials (PDF)
24 pages. Caveat: The responses reflect only unofficial, nonbinding staff views as of the time of the discussion, and do not necessarily represent the official position of the HHS. Further, the report on the discussions was prepared by JCEB representatives, based on their notes and recollections of the meeting. (American Bar Association Joint Committee on Employee Benefits)
Text of ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits Q&As with Department of Labor Officials (PDF)
25 pages. Caveat: 'The responses reflect only unofficial, nonbinding staff views as of the time of the discussion, and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Department of Labor. Further, this report on the discussions was prepared by JCEB representatives, based on their notes and recollections of the meeting." (American Bar Association Joint Committee on Employee Benefits)
Text of ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits Q&As with HHS Officials (PDF)
24 pages. Caveat: The responses reflect only unofficial, nonbinding staff views as of the time of the discussion, and do not necessarily represent the official position of the HHS. Further, the report on the discussions was prepared by JCEB representatives, based on their notes and recollections of the meeting. (American Bar Association Joint Committee on Employee Benefits)
Text of ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits Q&As with EEOC Officials (PDF)
3 pages. Caveat: The responses reflect only unofficial, nonbinding staff views as of the time of the discussion, and do not necessarily represent the official position of the EEOC. Further, the report on the discussions was prepared by JCEB representatives, based on their notes and recollections of the meeting. (American Bar Association Joint Committee on Employee Benefits)
Companies Altering Pay Arrangements for Outside Directors
Excerpt: "Companies are increasing the fees paid to their outside directors and diversifying stock-based pay to directors by trimming reliance on stock options, according to a Towers Perrin review of director compensation at most of the Fortune 500 companies." (Towers Perrin)
Department of Defense Stresses Reserve Component Troops' Re-Employment Rights Under USERRA
Excerpt: "National Guard troops, reservists and active duty military people can rest easy that their jobs will be waiting for them when they return from deployment. That is the message the U.S. Office of Special Counsel conveyed ... Passed in October 1994, the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act is the tool the Office of Special Counsel wields to back up that statement." (DefenseLINK)
Employers Face Important Decisions in Valuing Stock Options
Excerpt: "Companies that award employee stock options and other forms of stock-based compensation face a number of important decisions in responding to the Financial Accounting Standards Board's (FASB's) proposed expensing rule for share-based payments. Among the most pressing, companies must decide which method and assumptions to use in valuing stock options and other stock-based rewards." (Towers Perrin)
Newly Posted Events
Bringing Innovative, Results-Driven Thinking to Annual Enrollment
Nationwide on July 21, 2004
presented by Hewitt Associates LLC
Building a Better Health Care System: Specifications for Reform
Nationwide on July 20, 2004
presented by Kaiser Family Foundation
Newly Posted Press Releases
Thomas Announces Committee Action on H.R. 2971, the “Social Security Number Privacy and Identity Theft Prevention Act of 2004"
(U.S. House Ways and Means Committee)
NDCC And The SPARK Institute To Combine, Strengthening Defined Contribution Industry’s Voice In Washington
(RG Wuelfing & Associates)
SEC Extends Comment Period for Proposed Regulation B, Provisions Implementing Gramm-Leach-Bliley Bank Broker Rules
(U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Client Services Central Regional Manager
for Transamerica
in IL
Health & Welfare Specialist
for Long Island Employee Benefits Group, Ltd.
in NY
Technology Law Group - Paralegal
for American Express
in NY
Pension Specialist
for Large D.C. Law Firm
in DC
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- Search BenefitsLink
- Using the Web for Employee Benefits Research
- Employee Benefits Library
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