May 9, 2005 Today's sponsor: IQPC (Click on company name or banner to learn more.)
Employers and Employees Beware: Cafeteria Plans Face Possible Changes in Congress Excerpt: "The Joint Committee on Taxation of Congress has issued a recommendation to impose Social Security and Medicare taxes on cafeteria plans and other pre-tax benefits. This proposal would increase taxes for employees and employers alike, increasing the costs of health care and other benefits; resulting in the possibility of more people becoming uninsured due to increased costs." (Nashville Business Journal via bizjournals.com; one-time registration required) More Companies Are Offering Education Assistance Benefits, but Workers Do Not Take Advantage Excerpt: "The rising cost of higher education has alarmed employees who want to either advance their own studies or pay for their children's college tuition. In response, employers are offering broader tuition reimbursement programs and promoting ways to save for college. Yet despite the prevalence of education benefits, they are not widely used overall by today's workforce - a fact that experts blame on a lack of promotion." (Employee Benefit News) Family Leave Benefits Lacking in Many States, Study Finds Excerpt: "Most states are not going much beyond what federal law requires when it comes to parental leave laws, according to a new state-by-state analysis of laws, programs and policies of maternal and paternal leave by the National Partnership for Women & Families." (The Washington Post; one-time registration required) Releasing Employment-Related Claims Valid Despite Employee's Misunderstanding of COBRA Coverage Excerpt: "Although this was a state-court decision regarding the validity of a release of employment-related claims, it gives us an opportunity to comment on an area in which difficult COBRA issues can arise: severance arrangements. The severance arrangement described in this opinion, in which the employer agreed to pay the employee's COBRA premiums for several months, is quite common." (Employee Benefits Institute of America Inc.) HHS Clarifies Security Incident Reporting Requirements for Business Associates and Plan Sponsors Excerpt: "This is very welcome information. By allowing each covered entity to consider what specific activity should be reported as security incidents, and by giving covered entities discretion in setting the frequency of reporting and the information to be included in reports, these FAQs should relieve some of the anxiety regarding security incident monitoring and reporting that has plagued covered entities, business associates, and plan sponsors." (Employee Benefits Institute of America Inc.) Tool Calculates Economic Impact of Migraine on Company Workforce Excerpt: "Migraines can be a pain to more than those who suffer from them. Affecting approximately 28 million people, most of working age, migraines can impact a company's bottom line. How-ever, a new tool can assist employers in determining not only the extent of that impact on their workforce but also potential savings to the company by helping employees get the treatment they need." (Employee Benefit News) Sick Over Health Care Costs, Companies Get Some Relief with On-Site Medical Centers Excerpt: "Employers find that in addition to saving money, the clinics also help promote recruitment and retention. A growing number of companies, struggling to combat the escalating cost of health care, have reinvented the industrial clinics of decades ago. In place of nurses patching up on-the-job injuries, they're opening state-of-the art, fully staffed medical centers on-site or near-site. The clinics provide services from pharmacies and primary care to chronic disease management." (Workforce Management; one-time registration required) U.S. Employers Embrace European Rx Model of Reference Pricing Excerpt: "More employers are turning to reference pricing to drive health plan participants toward less expensive medications. 'Reference-based pricing is an approach where the health plan sponsor caps the maximum allowable reimbursement for a particular drug class at a certain level,' explains Ron Fontanetta, principal with the HR consulting firm Towers Perrin. It has been used in Europe and Can.ada for years." (Employee Benefit News) Consumer-Driven Plans Cloud Health Insurance Picture for Consumers Excerpt: "[T]he questions are likely to get deeper and thicker as the health insurance market shifts to consumer-driven plans. Such options expose patients to the price of health services, giving them an incentive to minimize their personal financial risk and seek information that will help them to make wise and efficient health-service choices. .... Some of that information is available now, but in disparate locations and some from biased sources." (Business First of Buffalo via bizjournals.com; one-time registration required) High Costs and Insurer Interest Are Reviving Limited Benefit Medical Plan Offerings Excerpt: "In only a few short years, limited medical benefit plans have risen in perception from a status as low-selling bare-bones programs marketed by niche vendors to potentially viable solutions to today's health care problems, including punishing health care costs and millions of working uninsured. Large insurance carriers certainly have noticed the turning tide, and they do not want to miss out. A number are making limited plans available at least on a voluntary basis: ...." (Employee Benefit News) Iowa Law Mandates Specific Mental Health Coverage be Included in Workplace Insurance Policies Excerpt: "Iowa Governor Thomas Vilsack has signed into law a bill mandating that companies providing workplace health care policies also provide coverage for treatment of seven biologically based mental illnesses. House File 420 specifies the ailments to be covered as schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, major depressive disorders, schizo-affective disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, pervasive developmental disorders and autistic disorders." (PLANSPONSOR.com; one-time registration required) House Democrats Propose Allowing Early Retirees to Buy Into Medicare Excerpt: "[The week of May 6, 2005], House Democrats introduced three bills that use a combination of tax credits and expansion of existing programs to address the problem of the uninsured. H.R. 2072, by Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), would allow low-income early retirees to buy into Medicare, while providing a 75 percent tax credit for premiums. The other measures would expand existing coverage of low income parents with children enrolled in public programs (H.R. 2071) and provide a 50 percent ...." (HR Policy Association) Testimony: Solving the Small Business Health Care Crisis with Association Health Plans (PDF) 5 pages. Excerpt: "The legislation being discussed today [April 20, 2005], S. 406, The Small Business Health Fairness Act of 2005, [before the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship] provides for the creation of Association Health Plans ('AHPs') which extend greater bargaining power, economies of scale, administrative efficiencies and uniform regulatory structures to small businesses." (U.S. Chamber of Commerce) State Lawmakers Want to Force Companies to Pay Employees' Health Insurance Excerpt: "The long-running debate over health insurance - its cost, who is covered and who should pay for it - is taking a new turn in the [Connecticut] General Assembly with legislation that would require large businesses to foot the bill to cover low-wage workers." (WorldNow and WFSB) Graphics Showing State Proposals on Employer Mandated Health Insurance Coverage The graphics published May 5, 2005, in the New York Times illustrate which states have considered some type of legislation that would place more of the responsibility for health care on employers. [Thanks to Attorney B. Janell Grenier at BenefitsBlog.com] (The New York Times; one-time registration required) Opinion: Big Companies Now Must Pay Their Share of Health Care Cost Excerpt: "The Fair Share Health Care measure recently approved by the Maryland General Assembly requires companies with more than 10,000 employees to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on health care for their workers. This law, ..., stipulates that companies that don't spend that amount must pay the difference between what they do spend and the 8 percent into a fund for the state Medicaid program." (The Washington Post; one-time registration required) Overview: Health Savings Accounts Used To Cut Costs (PDF) 3 pages. Excerpt: "Employers may make contributions to employees' HSAs (but are not required to do so). As part of the nondiscrimination rules, employers must make comparable contributions to all employees, which must be the same dollar amount or same percentage of the deductible under the HDHP, and must be on behalf of all employees in the same coverage category. IRS Notice 2004-50 permits employer matching contributions through a Cafeteria Plan." (Attorney Joan A. Disler of Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. via New Jersey Law Journal) Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General Web-Based Total Compensation Statements Keep Employees in the Know Excerpt: "As benefit costs represent an increasingly large slice of employee compensation, experts say it's more critical than ever to communicate the total value of compensation and benefits. A growing number of employers have decided the best way to do that is to ditch paper-based total compensation statements in favor of the Internet." (Employee Benefit News) Spokane, Washington, City Council OKs Domestic Partner Benefits Excerpt: "The Spokane City Council has approved extending benefits to unmarried partners of city employees - if their labor unions want to negotiate for those benefits. The ordinance, which passed by a 5-2 vote, would allow domestic partners to obtain health-care benefits, city-sponsored life insurance, and pension rights. Employees could take paid leave from work to attend to emergencies or illnesses involving their partners." (PLANSPONSOR.com; one-time registration required) 10 Mistakes Corporations Make When Designing Benefit Plans for Executives Excerpt: "Despite the focused interest on changes in executive benefit strategies triggered by the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation and the more recent American Jobs Creation Act, companies continue to make a number of common errors when putting together executive benefits packages, and in particular, nonqualified benefit packages. The outcome could harm the executives, the company or both." (Jim Clary, Mullin Consulting, via Employee Benefit News) Commentary and Outline on IRS Executive Compensation Audit Technique Guides Excerpt: "What is the IRS telling its agents to look for in the executive compensation arena when they audit an employer? The IRS has recently posted on their website 'audit technique guides (ATGs) that agents use during the course of corporation and/or executive employee tax examinations' which cover these topics: ...." (Attorney B. Janell Grenier via BenefitsBlog.com) Newly Posted Events Medicare Part D: Decision-Making Information Nationwide on May 19, 2005 presented by International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Newly Posted Press Releases Union Membership a Key to Health Care Coverage (Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI)) Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings Public Policy Analyst for National Business Group on Health in DC Actuary for Bolton Partners, Inc. in MD Internal Wholesaler for ING U. S. Financial Services in KS Pension Administrator for Benetech, Inc. in GA, VA 401(k)/ DC Plan Consultant for Benefit Services Group, Inc. in IL Non-Qualified Benefit Plan Administration Specialist for McCamish Systems, LLC in GA 401(k) Plan Administration Consultant for Chesapeake Benefit Partners in DC, MD, VA Benefit Analyst, Sr. for O'Charley's in TN Research Manager, Human Resource Practice for The Corporate Executive Board in DC Handy Links:
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