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August 4, 2004
Today's sponsor: IQPC

(Click on company name or banner to learn more.)

Conference on Healthcare Cost Containment Strategies for Employers
Proven Strategies for Reducing your Healthcare Costs, Maintaining
Healthy Employees and Sustaining a Competitive Benefits Package
October 25 - 27th, 2004 * Chateau Sonesta Hotel * New Orleans, LA
This must-attend event will provide you with real-time strategies
and solutions in lowering your healthcare costs.  Hear first-hand
case studies on how to implement innovative techniques to ensure
healthy employees while maintaining a competitive benefits package,
and walk away with practical knowledge enabling your company to
become a market leader in healthcare cost containment.

(Please visit our sponsors. We try to make sure their products and services will be of interest to you. Thanks! --Editor)
Analysis: CMS Releases Proposed Retiree Drug Benefit Rules
Excerpt: "Proposed rules implementing the new Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit offer employer retiree medical plan sponsors monthly subsidy payments. But these proposed rules have few details on issues such as calculating the important concept of 'actuarial equivalence' in their more than 1,300 pages. Certainly, these proposed rules have spawned the best new acronym in a long time – TrOOP – true out-of-pocket costs ..." (Deloitte's Washington Bulletin)

Analysis: IRS Tells Us Just About Everything You Wanted to Know About HSAs (PDF)
4 pages. Excerpt: "In its 88 questions and answers, IRS Notice 2004-50 covers topics ranging from the curious (Can HSA funds be invested art or wine? No, but certain types of coins are OK) to the purely administrative (Can husbands and wives have joint HSAs? No, but they may open separate accounts) to the potentially critical (Will an employee assistance program inadvertently render all your employees ineligible to have HSAs? No)." (Gardner Carton & Douglas)

HSA Guidance from IRS Could Boost Use of Preventative Care But Cause Complications
Excerpt: "But some insurers and employers may be left with more questions than answers about how to allow enrollees access to preventive services and medications on a 'first-dollar' basis without being subject to the high deductible. And implementing that aspect of the guidance could be a big headache for health plans, PBMs and others, experts warn. 'I don't think they understand the Pandora's box they've opened,' says Jay Savan, [of] Towers Perrin's St. Louis office." (Managed Care Week via AISHealth.com)

Hospitals Moving Toward Paperless Age
Excerpt: "Federal officials who are trying to convince more hospital executives to go 'paperless' say electronic records can make hospitals more efficient, reduce medical errors and lower health-care costs. The costs of the transition can be high, and many physicians are also unwilling to trade the ease of jotting down paperbound notations of their patients' statuses for a system that requires them to type the same information into a computer." (AP via Washington Post; one-time registration required)

ASPA Testifies on Form 5500 Non-Filings by Welfare Plans
Excerpt: "On August 3, 2004, Janice M. Wegesin, CPC, presented testimony on behalf of ASPA before the ERISA Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans Working Group ... She stated '[t]he first problem an employer faces with welfare benefit plans is that it does not know whether a given benefit program constitutes an ERISA plan and, in many cases, may not even know enough to ask that question. As a result, Form 5500 filings are not prepared when needed.'" (American Society of Pension Actuaries)

Preventive Health Care Services Need Significant Improvement, CDC Indicates
The quality of preventive health care services has either deteriorated or not improved for most prevention quality measures, and individuals of lower socioeconomic status and minorities are less likely to obtain these services, according to the National Healthcare Quality Report and the National Healthcare Disparities Report prepared by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) for the Department of Health and Human Services. (Spencer Benefits Reports)

Overview: GASB Issues Guidance on Accounting for Health, Other Benefits
Excerpt: "GASB (Government Accounting Standards Board) issues guidance on how public employers and plan sponsors will need to account for health benefits and other postemployment benefits beginning in 2007-2009." (National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems)

Opinion: Be Wary of Kerry Proposal to Expand Health Coverage to Uninsured
Excerpt: "Federal and postal workers and retired feds should keep an eye on Sen. John Kerry's plan to give more people affordable health insurance by putting them in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program.... The program is considered so good that many former politicians seek out federal appointments so they can remain in the program and qualify for it when they retire." (Mike Causey in the Washington Times)

Overview: Health Care Expenses in Retirement and the Use of Health Savings Accounts
Excerpt: "This Issue Brief examines the impact of Medicare Part D on savings needed for insurance premiums to supplement Medicare, Medicare Part B and D premiums, and out-of-pocket expenses in retirement, and examines the viability of using HSAs to save for these expenses. It presents a wide range of estimates based on various ages at the time of death ...' Full text of Issue Brief available for purchasing from EBRI at http://www.ebri.org/store/ebriib.htm (Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI))

National Obesity Epidemic Shaping Health Plans
Excerpt: "America's longstanding hesitation to aggressively manage an obesity problem that has grown to epidemic proportions is rooted in the fear of perception that such efforts would seem like meddling in the private lives of its citizenry. It also hasn't helped that in the age of political correctness, the nation often thinks twice about passing judgment on a sensitive issue wherein lifestyle choices, environmental factors and genetics converge. But thankfully these attitudes are changing..." (BenefitNews.com)

Libertarian Cato Institute Opposes Ban on Drug Reimportation
Excerpt: "The libertarian Cato Institute, in direct conflict with its allies in the Bush administration, will argue in a report to be released today that Congress ought to lift the ban on prescription drug imports and let the global marketplace sort out imbalances that leave Americans paying the highest prices in the world." (Washington Post; one-time registration required)

Flexible Work Schedules Pay Off for Workers, Employers
Excerpt: "[F]lexible schedules have become so popular that experts estimate more than half of U.S. companies now offer the perk. The growing percentage of women in the work force and the efforts of a new post-baby boom generation to juggle the demands of work and family are contributing to the trend." (Baltimore Sun; one-time registration required)

Now Online: BLS Publication Describing Diversity of Work Schedules, Flex Time
Originally published in 1986. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor)

Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General

Chart of Proposed Deferred Compensation Changes
8 pages; prepared July 19, 2004. Excerpt: "Attached is a side-by-side comparison of the deferred compensation legislation being considered in Congress. While passage of this legislation remains uncertain, there is a good chance that some form of this legislation will be enacted this year because ..." (Dow Lohnes & Albertson PLLC)

Forces Shaping the Future Workforce and Workplace in the United States
Excerpt: "Shifting Demographic Parameters Shaping The Future Workforce; The Information Age And Beyond: The Reach Of Technology; A New Era Of Global Integration" (RAND Corporation)

Trends In Job Demands Among Older Workers, 1992–2002
Excerpt: "Employment increases among older adults could relieve some of the demographic pressures created by population aging, but only if older workers are physically able to perform their job responsibilities; the share of workers ages 55 to 60 in jobs that never require much physical effort increased 18 percent between 1992 and 2002." (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor)

United Says Pension, Retiree Costs Fell
Excerpt: "United Airlines' pension and retiree medical costs have fallen dramatically since last year, the troubled airline reported in its latest quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission." (AP via Los Angeles Times; one-time registration required)

What Sites Do You Visit To Keep Up with Employee Benefits Compliance and Design Developments?
Add 'em to our community-maintained list! (BenefitsLink Wiki)

Voters in Missouri Approve State Constitutional Amendment to Ban Same-Sex Marriage
Excerpt: "With 93 percent of precincts reporting, the amendment had garnered 70 percent of the vote. Voters in at least 9 other states - and perhaps as many as 12 - are expected to consider similar amendments this fall, so advocates on both sides of the debate were intensely watching Missouri's results, anxious about what they might say about voters elsewhere in the weeks ahead." (New York Times; one-time registration required)

Newly Posted Events

Administering COBRA
Nationwide on August 12, 2004
presented by HRTrainingCenter.com

Automatic Rollover Regulations and Lost Participants, plus 401(k) Corrections - Workshop/Dinner
in California on August 25, 2004
presented by National Institute of Pension Administrators

Current Issues With 401(k) Plans
Nationwide on September 14, 2004
presented by HRTrainingCenter.com

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs): The Latest IRS Guidance
Nationwide on August 19, 2004
presented by HRTrainingCenter.com
Newly Posted Press Releases

Pension Plan Funding Regains Some Lost Ground, Watson N Wyatt Analysis Finds
(Watson Wyatt)

Alliance Benefit Group Rolls Out Employer Driven Health Savings Accounts
(Alliance Benefit Group)

New e-mail Service Available for Technical Guidance
(Internal Revenue Service (IRS))

Coudert Adds ERISA Counsel Michael Kushner in New York
(Coudert Brothers LLP)

2004 Health Plan Directory Now Available in Electronic and Print Formats
(Atlantic Information Services, Inc)

Dorsa Consulting Launches Internet Platform To Provide Pension Consumer Education
(Dorsa Consulting)

Financial Industry Educators to Launch New Professional Designation
(Center for Fiduciary Studies)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Post a Help Wanted Ad

401(k) Administrator
for Small Suburban Maryland 401(k)/Retirement Plan TPA
in MD

Client Services / Account Mgr.
for ExpertPlan, Inc.
in NJ

Service Coordinator
for 401(k) Advisors
in CA

Consultant - Retirement Practice
for Back Bay - Boston
in MA

Conversion Tech II
for First Charter Bank/Southeastern Employee Benefits Services
in NC

Defined Benefits/Pension Plan Implementation MGR
for Mellon HR & Investor Solutions
in NJ

Vice President, Employee Benefits Compliance
for Twentieth Century Fox
in CA

Defined Contribution Plan Administrator/Consultant
for Pension Works, Inc.
in VT

Customer Service Call Center Representative
for CDM Retirement Consultants, Inc.
in MD

Handy Links:
Copyright 2004 BenefitsLink.com, Inc.; except that you can reprint this newsletter in full (including this boilerplate part) without obtaining our permission.

Published by:

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Editor and Publisher: David Rhett Baker, J.D.

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