| BenefitsLink Welfare Plans Newsletter |   |
February 2, 2005
Today's sponsor: BenefitsLink.com
(Click on company name or banner to learn more.)
Downloadable Software Available Now! Now you can buy employee benefits software on the Internet quickly and securely, through a web site you know and trust. Come back at any time and buy other software just by clicking a link and entering a password, without having to go through all the credit card info and other online forms all over again. The Downloadable Software page on BenefitsLink-- click above for details!
Half of All Bankrup.tcy Is Due to Medical Bills
Excerpt: "Half of all U.S. bankruptcies are caused by soaring medical bills and most people sent into debt by illness are middle-class workers with health insurance, researchers said on Wednesday. The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, estimated that medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans every year, if both debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children, are counted." (Reuters via The New York Times; one-time registration required)
Motivating a Workforce to Contain Rising Health Plan Costs (PDF)
3 pages. Excerpt: "An increasing number of employers are creating plan designs that engage participants in health improvement. However, as our case studies demonstrate, plan design may not be enough without incentives and effective communication, which are critical in motivating plan participants to help contain health costs. Plan designs that focus on health status improvement may be the vehicle for driving results, but communication puts the plan participant behind the steering wheel." (Aon Consulting)
Health Insurers Agree to Testing Program to Judge Communication with Members
Excerpt: "Two of the larger players in the Central Ohio health insurance arena have signed on for a pilot program to gauge how well they communicate with their members. Aetna Inc. and Medical Mutual of Ohio are among 39 health plans that will participate in the National Committee for Quality Assurance's new Members Connection program. The goal ... is to determine how health plans stack up in making it easy for members to access information about their coverage and stay involved in their care." (Business First of Columbus via bizjournals.com; one-time registration required)
Most Employees Don't Have a Clue About How Likely They Are to Need Disability Coverage
Excerpt: "One-third of workers over age 30 will become disabled for at least three months during their careers, yet the public vastly underestimates that risk, according to a survey of 800 working adults by America's Health Insurance Plans. Nearly half of employees (47%) say they're not concerned that a disability will put them out of work for three months or more, while 25% are somewhat concerned and 27% are very concerned." (Employee Benefit News)
Don't Buy a Benefits Policy, Buy a Benefits Process: Integrated Absence Management Aids Bottom Line
Excerpt: "Cort is one of hundreds of midsize companies opting for Integrated Absence Management or IAM. By outsourcing the management of short-term and long-term disability with workers compensation, IAM offers an integrated approach to employee absences, referred to in the industry as lost-time workdays. Whether the injury or illness is occupational or non occupational becomes less important than the plan to return the employee to work." (Treasury & Risk Management)
Millionaires Are Worried About the Increasing Cost of Health Care, According to a New Survey
Excerpt: "In fact, this issue is so troublesome that nearly half of the millionaires surveyed say they will continue working either full- or part-time instead of retiring. .... The survey found that 92 percent of millionaires questioned said they worried the cost of health care would hurt their ability to enjoy retirement." (The Denver Business Journal via bizjournals.com; one-time registration required)
Health Secretary Calls for Medicaid Changes
Excerpt: "Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, called Tuesday for sweeping changes in Medicaid that would cut payments for pres.cription drugs and give states new power to reduce or reconfigure benefits for millions of low-income people." (The New York Times; one-time registration required)
States Buying in Bulk to Stretch Rx Dollars -- Wisconsin May Extend Program to Uninsured Individuals
Excerpt: "Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D) wants to expand a bargain shopping strategy – buying in bulk – to help 500,000 uninsured residents get better prices on their pres.cription medicine. His plan would let uninsured Wisconsinites pay a small enrollment fee to join BadgerRx, the state's pres.cription drug bulk-purchasing pool, which currently is limited to state employees and private businesses." (Stateline.org)
Kids-Only Insurance Offered to Oregon Employers
Excerpt: "Gov. Ted Kulongoski will outline an unprecedented kids-only health insurance option for small employers .... The plan is part of a package designed to encourage more businesses to offer medical coverage to workers and their families -- and curb the rising number of uninsured children in Oregon. .... The new insurance package, developed by the state Insurance Pool Governing Board, will be offered March 1 by Health Net of Oregon and Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon." (The Oregonian)
Stop Paying for Ineligible Beneficiary Health Care Through Employment-Based Plans
Excerpt: "Managing health plan expenses is hard enough when you are just dealing with those employees and dependents who are legitimately covered by your plan. But when you unwittingly pay for healthcare services for people who aren't even eligible for benefits, you are simply adding to plan costs unnecessarily." (Employee Benefit News)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
Overview: Expensing Employee Stock Options— Using Good Valuation to Produce Better Plan Design (PDF)
2 pages. Excerpt: "Now that the Financial Accounting Standards Board ... has issued its much awaited revisions to FAS Statement 123 ..., employers that grant employee stock options ... need to plan how to comply with the new expensing requirements. [M]ore importantly, companies will need to understand how best to perform valuations that produce financial expense results that serve the best interests of shareholders, satisfy regulatory authorities, and pass muster with their external auditors." (Aon Consulting)
Be Careful with Deferred Compensation -- New Rules May Cost You Money Now
Excerpt: "Nonqualified deferred compensation plans must have restrictions or 'substantial risks of forfeiture' in place to qualify. .... For instance, one company's 'substantial risk of forfeiture' might be that you need to stay with the company for five years to qualify for your bonus, says Mark Luscombe, a principal federal tax analyst with CCH, a provider of tax and business law information. Another risk could be that you must meet certain performance goals to get the money." (TheStreet.com)
Regulators Consider Making Sarbanes-Oxley's 404 Less Burdensome for Small/Midsize Companies
Excerpt: "In December, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) named [James Thyen] as co-chair of a new advisory committee formed to assess the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley on small and midsize public companies and whether regulators should create a different set of 404 rules for them.'Regulators consider making Sarbanes-Oxley's 404 less burdensome for small/midsize companies (Treasury & Risk Management)
Newly Posted Press Releases
PBGC Encourages Plan Sponsors To File Premiums Electronically
(Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC))
Domestic Partnerships and Healthcare Costs Are Changing the Employee Benefits Landscape – BLR’s Compensation.BLR.com Reports
(Business and Legal Reports, Inc.)
You call this a raise?
(Business and Legal Reports, Inc.)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Senior Actuarial Analyst
for Conrad Siegel Actuaries
in PA
Assistant Operations Manager
for Mellon Human Resources and Investor Solutions
in NJ
Retirement Plan Administrator
for Temple-Inland
in TX
Retirement Plan Administrator
for Small TPA Firm Established in 1982
in CA
SE HM Cons. X2
for Hewitt Associates
in GA
Design Consultant Adv
for Hewitt Associates
in IL
Financial Manager Project Manager
for Hewitt Associates
in IL
Retirement Plan Consultant
for Invesmart, Inc.
in OH
Handy Links:
- View Today's Active Message Threads
- Search BenefitsLink
- Using the Web for Employee Benefits Research (hypertext article)
- Employee Benefits Library
Copyright 2005 BenefitsLink.com, Inc.; except that you may reprint this newsletter in full (including this sentence) without obtaining our permission.
Published by:
BenefitsLink.com, Inc.
https://benefitslink.com/about.html
1298 Minnesota Avenue, Suite H
Winter Park FL 32789
(407) 644-4146
Fax: (407) 644-2151
Editor and Publisher: David Rhett Baker, J.D.
Housekeeping: