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February 14, 2005
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Senators Propose FSA Carry Forward
Excerpt: "A bipartisan US Senate group has proposed allowing workers to carry forward up to $500 in unusual Flexible Spending Account (FSA) funds to the next year or move the money to a Health Savings Account (HSA). Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) sponsored The Flexible Spending Account Enhancement Act of 2005 (S 309) with Senators Ken Salazar (D-Colorado) and John Ensign (R-Nevada) , according to a statement on DeMint's Web site." (PLANSPONSOR.com; one-time registration required)
Court Blocks EEOC From Issuing Regs On Retiree Health Care Benefits
Excerpt: "In response to a suit filed by AARP, U.S. District Court Judge Anita Brody in Philadelphia has delayed for at least 60 days the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's issuing of final regulations regarding retiree health care benefits. The judge set March 1 for the beginning of oral arguments in the case." (Spencer Benefits Reports)
New York Health Plans Agree to Improve Communications with Consumers
Excerpt: "Twenty-one New York health plans this week vowed to improve consumers' access to coverage information after an undercover probe by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer found the insurers violating state law. Disclosure to current and prospective plan members of 'clinical review criteria' -- used by insurers to determine whether or not health care claims will be covered -- is mandated by the New York Managed Care Consumer Bill of Rights." (Business Insurance)
Online Education Program Helps Employed Caregivers
Excerpt: "[M]ost eldercare education still focuses on caring for the person with the illness or disability. One program, however, is bucking the trend by teaching employed caregivers of older adults better ways to balance their own personal needs with those of the person for whom they're caring. And to make the program even more accessible, administrators recently launched an online pilot version of it." (Employee Benefit News)
AARP Maine 'Caregiving in the Workplace' Survey (PDF)
24 pages. Excerpt: "In order to assess employers' awareness of their employees' caregiving roles and how businesses are responding to their caregiving employees' needs, AARP Maine undertook this mail survey of Pine Tree State firms having at least two employees. The study found that almost half of the 436 employers surveyed are aware of their employees' involvement in caregiving activities for family members and loved ones." (AARP)
California Assembly Members Announce Legislation to Mandate Health Insurance Coverage
Excerpt: "Assembly members Joe Nation (D-San Rafael) and Keith Richman (R-Northridge) on Thursday announced a proposal for legislation that would require California residents to maintain health care coverage, the Sacramento Bee reports. They plan to introduce next week a package of eight bills that comprise the proposal." (California HealthCare Foundation)
Push for Web-Based Health Records Launched: Duke University Spearheads Series of Pilot Tests
Excerpt: "A nonprofit foundation that's aiming to bolster consumer adoption rates of electronic health records is launching pilot tests of the technology in Can.ada and the U.S. The Health Record Network Foundation (HRN), a joint venture of Durham, N.C.-based Duke University's medical and business schools, this month disclosed plans to launch a pilot program with a Toronto-based health system to create a portal where patient health information would be accessible over the Internet." (Computerworld Inc.)
Wall Street Journal Profiles Company that Uses In-House Primary Care to Reduce Health Care Costs
Excerpt: "The Wall Street Journal on Friday profiled Quad/Graphics, one of the largest U.S. printing companies with 12,000 employees, which has 'brought nearly all of its primary health care in-house.' Wisconsin-based Quad, which began with a small in-house clinic in 1990, currently has physicians and nurses in a range of specialties, from pediatrics to gynecology. Last year, Quad spent about $6,000 per employee on health care costs -- about 30% less than the average company in Wisconsin ...." (Kaiser Family Foundation)
Comments: Washington Post Medicare Drug Costs Story and Analysis of Bush's Health Policy Proposals
Excerpt: "The brouhaha over Medicare and pres.cription drugs escalated this week with an irresponsible story in The Washington Post on Wednesday claiming that 'the new Medicare pres.cription drug benefit will cost more than $1.2 trillion in the coming decade,' triple the original cost estimates. .... Unfortunately overshadowed in all of this messy debate are the very good health policy proposals that President Bush put forward in his 2006 budget proposal ...." (Galen Institute)
Three Senators Introduce Revised Pres.cription Drug Reimportation Bill
Excerpt: "Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) on Wednesday introduced a new version of bipartisan legislation that would allow the reimportation of drugs from Can.ada and other countries, CongressDaily reports. The revised bill omits potential trade and other problems that last year caused Senate Finance Chair Grassley to reject the legislation (CongressDaily, 2/9)." (California HealthCare Foundation)
Medicare: The Next Steps (PDF)
8 pages. Excerpt: "The passage of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 made some of the most significant changes to the Medicare program since its inception. The new law adds a pres.cription drug benefit to Medicare, creates the Medicare Advantage program to replace the Medicare+Choice program, and establishes a demonstration program to test competition between Medicare and private plans. .... This issue brief outlines four of the areas where further action could be taken: ...." (American Academy of Actuaries)
General Motors Cutting Walgreens As Pres.cription Provider
Excerpt: "Calling the 4,700-store-chain 'unreliable,' General Motors Corp. and its pres.cription-drug management firm are pulling GM's business from Walgreens as of March 1. The result: GM's 1.1 million employees, retirees and their spouses and dependents across Michigan and the country who rely on GM for health care won't be able to get their pres.cription drugs at Walgreens any longer." (Detroit Free Press)
Licensing and Risk Lie Ahead for Pharmacy Benefit Managers Interested in Medicare Part D
Excerpt: "The main challenges for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) wishing to participate in the new Medicare pres.cription drug benefit as a Pres.cription Drug Plan are the relatively short time frame to complete applications and the smaller-than-expected size of the pres.cription drug plan (PDP) regions designated by CMS, ...." (DRUG BENEFIT NEWS via AISHealth.com)
Bush Vows Veto of Any Cutback in Medicare Drug Benefit
Excerpt: "President Bush threatened ... to veto any bill that scales back Medicare's pres.cription drug benefit, which becomes available in January 2006 to millions of elderly and disabled people. New estimates showing that the benefit will cost $724 billion over a decade have touched off a furor in Congress, where lawmakers originally believed that it would cost much less. Many members of Congress say they want to revisit the Medicare law this year. Conservatives seek cutbacks in benefits ...." (The New York Times; one-time registration required)
Employee Health Problems Falling on Employers' Shoulders
Excerpt: "Dr. Richard Perryman, owner of Opinion Leaders, says more employers and health insurance companies are signing up for his programs that create incentives for employees to live healthier lifestyles. With 74 percent of health insurance benefits provided through employers and 70 percent of all health care expenditures dedicated to treating preventable conditions, this country is headed for a health care crisis, he says." (The Business Journal of Phoenix via bizjournals.com; one-time registration required)
As Obesity-Related Illnesses Increase -- Blues Plans Work to Win Battle of the Bulge
Excerpt: "Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans ... are trying to get their arms around a growing health issue -- the rapidly expanding waistlines of their members. While all Blues plan officials who spoke with AIS say they hope their programs will lead to a healthier -- and ultimately less expensive -- member population, their approaches vary greatly, from patient education and exercise programs to significantly higher fees paid to surgeons who perform bariatric procedures with few complications." (The AIS Report on Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans via AISHealth.com)
Consumer Directed Health Plans Could Force Providers to Negotiate Retail Rates for Patients
Excerpt: "Providers have good reason to be concerned about the growth of consumer-directed health (CDH), says Mark Wysong, vice president of managed care for HCA Inc.'s Central Atlantic region. .... Providers and insurers are accustomed to 'wholesale' price negotiations and are a long way from looking at the cost of services in retail terms, ...." (INSIDE CONSUMER-DIRECTED CARE via AISHealth.com)
Senate Committee Passes Legislation to Prevent Genetic Discrimination Among Employers and Insurers
Excerpt: "The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on [February 9] by voice vote approved a bill (S 306) that would establish protections against genetic discrimination, CQ HealthBeat reports. Under the legislation, sponsored by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), employers could not use genetic information in employment decisions, and insurance companies could not deny coverage or establish premium rates based on such information (CQ HealthBeat, 2/10)." (Kaiser Family Foundation)
Economic View: Is Labor Out in Front on Health Care?
Excerpt: "Recent conversations with Morton Bahr of the Communications Workers of America and Andrew Stern of the Service Employees International Union suggest that at least some union leaders think about the health system in ways more sophisticated and businesslike than many chief executives do - and that they are eager to be partners in a national reform dialogue that's overdue." (The New York Times; one-time registration required)
Overview: EEOC Final Regs on Coordinating Retiree Health Benefits with Medicare Delayed by AARP
Excerpt: "Employers offering retiree health benefits will have to wait even longer to obtain some badly needed certainty. This lawsuit reflects a deep divide between those who fear that employers will simply stop offering all retiree health benefits if they can't coordinate them with Medicare, and those who believe that employers offering retiree health benefits should treat all retirees the same, regardless of age." (Employee Benefits Institute of America Inc.)
Health Savings Accounts Vendors Want to Add Credit Lines to the Product
Excerpt: "Early adopters of health savings accounts are finding there's a big design flaw in their health plans - if they have large medical expenses at the beginning of the year, they don't have the balances in their HSAs to cover the costs. To solve this dilemma, some HSA vendors have considered adding credit lines to their products." (Employee Benefit News)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
Sarbanes-Oxley Has New Dimensions for Internal Probes at Health Care Entities
Excerpt: "The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has raised the stakes for internal investigations at health care entities, which are already required and/or encouraged to perform them by a variety of state and federal regulators." (REPORT ON MEDICARE COMPLIANCE via AISHealth.com)
Newly Posted Events
February Brown Bag Luncheon
in Kentucky on February 22, 2005
presented by ASPPA Benefits Council of Greater Cincinnati
Financial and Retirement Planning Education and Advice: The Value to an Organization and Its Employees
Nationwide on February 24, 2005
presented by International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans
IRA Beneficiary Distributions Telephone Seminar
Nationwide on June 16, 2005
presented by BISYS Retirement Services
IRA Compliance Telephone Seminar
Nationwide on June 7, 2005
presented by BISYS Retirement Services
Newly Posted Press Releases
PBGC Deal Strengthens Pensions At Crown Central Petroleum
(Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC))
U. S. Labor Department Extends Annual Reports Deadline After Severe Storms and Flooding Hit California
(U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Public Affairs, San Francisco, Calif.)
Movers and Shakers: Newly Posted Announcements of Promotions and New Personnel
(Post Yours!)
Mary Read CPC, QPA
(Feldman Benefit Services, Inc.)
David Bowden, CEBS, CMS, RPA
(Leggette Actuaries/Consultants)
Kenneth D. Wilke
(Leggette Actuaries/Consultants)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Benefits Service Manager
for Hewitt Associates
in IL, WI
Client Services (CST) Quality Analyst
for ICMA Retirement Corporation
in DC
Senior Manager
for Zenith Administrators, Inc.
in CA, WA
Pension Administrators
for The Pension Service, LLC
in MA
Defined Benefit Specialists
for Constantin Control Associates
in MA
Senior Consultant
for MK Consulting, Inc.
in ANY STATE
Retirement Plan Administrator (Defined Contribution)
for Benefit Administration Company, LLC
in WA
New Business Consultant (Regional)
for Emjay Retirement Services, A Great-West Company
in CA, CO, NV, UT, WA, WY
Regional Sales Manager
for RSM McGladrey, Inc.
in IL, NY
Retirement Plan Administrator/Consultant
for Virchow Krause & Company
in WI
Conversion/Compliance Specialist
for Retirement Benefit Solutions, LLC
in VA
Benefits Manager
for YALE UNIVERSITY - Employee Benefits Department
in CT
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