BenefitsLink Welfare Plans Newsletter August 19, 2005 Today's sponsor: NCEO (Click on company name or banner to learn more.) NCEO publications in the BenefitsLink Bookstore! The National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO), a nonprofit membership and research organization that provides information on broad-based employee stock plans, now has over a dozen of its most popular publications available for purchase in the BenefitsLink bookstore. Topics range from employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) to stock options to employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs). (Please visit our sponsors. We try to make sure their products and services will be of interest to you. Thanks! --Editor) HIPAA Security Series: The 6th Paper -- Basics of Risk Analysis and Risk Management (PDF) 20 pages. Excerpt: "The security series of papers will provide guidance from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on the rule titled 'Security Standards for the Protection of Electronic Protected Health Information,' found at 45 CFR Part 160 and Part 164, Subparts A and C, commonly known as the Security Rule." (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) Health Insurers Trying to Reduce Imaging Tests Excerpt: "For years, pres.cription drugs got much of the blame for increasing health-care costs. Now, insurers have another target: high-tech diagnostic imaging - those CT scans, MRIs, and other tests that doctors are ordering in large numbers for patients with hurt knees, shoulder injuries or chest pain." (The Philadelphia Inquirer; one-time registration required) Physicians as Retailers: Banking on Convergence Excerpt: "A funny thing happened to healthcare on the way to the bank: Common interests of banks, HSAs, high-deductible consumer plans, information technologies and physicians converged. Doctors realized electronic records would allow them to be paid promptly, completely and reliably at the point of care, through cash or credit, debit or smart cards, just as with any other retail transaction. Banks realized they could market and serve as repositories for HSA funds. Consumer-driven plans ...." (HealthLeaders) Health Insurance Costs Hinder Would-Be Entrepreneurs Excerpt: "As health costs soar, more would-be entrepreneurs are reluctant to quit Corporate America and its blue-chip benefits to start businesses, entrepreneurship experts say. That raises alarms about the impact on innovation and job growth, when both are of growing importance to the U.S. economy." (USA TODAY) Wall Street Journal Examines Health Insurance Coverage for Preventive Care Excerpt: "The Wall Street Journal [yesterday] examined discrepancies among patients, doctors and insurers in defining preventive health care services and how that affects reimbursement. The issue 'has become particularly important for high-deductible plans,' many of which will pay for preventive care before a patient has hit the deductible -- 'but different insurers sometimes have different views on what constitutes preventive care,' according to the Journal." (Kaiser Family Foundation) Limited Health Coverage an Option for Small Maryland Firms Excerpt: "Maryland is beginning to offer a lower-cost health insurance policy to small employers, but it is not clear how many will be buying.Beginning last month, the state permitted insurers to offer policies with limited benefits to small businesses. The policies cover most medical services, but with tight annual dollar caps for each service, such as $150 a year for diagnostic and lab work." (The Baltimore Sun; one-time registration required) Health Plan Providers Have Good IT; Executives Want Still More Excerpt: "Health insurers have driven much of the automation currently existing in the health care system, motivated by the need to ensure profitability and to be in compliance with HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. For most insurers, claims, customer service and enrollment information are already largely automated. Still, many of these executives are seeking to integrate business enterprise applications even more fully into their businesses." (CIO Insight) Opinion: Congress Should Consider Legislation Requiring Individuals to Have Health Insurance Excerpt: "'With 45 million Americans uninsured, achieving universal access to health care may seem daunting, but it's not impossible,' California Medical Association CEO Jack Lewin and Aetna President Ronald Williams write in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece." (Kaiser Family Foundation) Quebec Asks for More Time to Regulate Private Health Care Excerpt: "The Quebec government has asked the Supreme Court of Can.ada for an 18-month suspension of the Chaoulli decision, which struck down the province's ban on private insurers, to permit the government to identify, analyze and draft new rules to regulate private health care and health insurance." (BenefitNews Connect) Opinion: Pick and Lose with Choice in Health Insurance Excerpt: "Has any word done more to cloak the modern conservative agenda than 'choice'? …what conservatives in this country never mention is that giving us these new choices also means taking something away -- typically, programs that make us more secure. Health care… may be the most vivid example of this. And a new bill quietly moving through Congress this summer shows why. It is called -- what else? -- the Health Care Choice Act." (The New Republic via Physicians for a National Health Program) Opinion: Time to Overhaul HSAs -- Health Accounts No Panacea for Retirement Excerpt: "The jury isn't back quite yet. But already there are telltale signs that health savings accounts, HSAs, are in need of a major overhaul. Hailed as an IRA for current and future health-care expenses, researchers now say HSAs may not be the greatest thing since electric toothbrushes. HSAs will help retirees pay for just a fraction of future health-care expenses." (MarketWatch) HSA State Implementation Report Excerpt: "HSAs have been popular in the state legislatures .... Unfortunately, this popularity doesn't mean that all states have solved the implementation issues .... The [CAHI has] followed these issues ... and the results [are outlined in the following topics:] (1) Tax Treatment of HSAs; (2) HSA State-Mandated-Benefit Issues; (3) HSAs and High-Risk Pools; (4) HSAs for State and Municipal Employees; (5) HSAs for Medicaid Beneficiaries; and, (6) Mandating an HSA Option." (Council for Affordable Health Insurance) Voluntary Benefits -- A Solution for High Benefit Costs, According to Survey Excerpt: "MetLife's 2004 Employee Benefits Trends Study found that many employers see voluntary benefits, for which employees pay some or all of the costs, as a cost-effective solution to enhance benefits, minimize costs, and address the needs of employees." (PLANSPONSOR.com: one-time registration required) Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General Special Report: Another Pension System in the Red -- Part 3 -- Retiree Health Care on Chopping Block Excerpt: "The county's $1.2 billion deficit in its pension fund has forced pension officials to consider withholding the money that would usually pay for retiree health care and using it instead to supplement ballooning taxpayer contributions to the deficit. County leadership maintains that health care has always been an added benefit -- one the county could take away if it needed to." (voice on san diego) FASB Decides on Freestanding Financial Instruments Originally Granted for Employee Services Excerpt: "At its Aug.17, 2005 board meeting, the Financial Accounting Standards Board ('FASB' or 'the board') instructed the FASB staff to proceed to drafting a final FASB Staff Position (FSP) on the treatment of freestanding financial instruments originally granted for employee services, with respect to the requirements set forth in FASB Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 123R, 'Accounting for Share-Based Payments' (FAS 123R)." (Financial Executives International) A Work-Filled Retirement: Workers' Changing Views on Employment and Leisure (PDF) 45 pages. Excerpt: "In this report, American workers across the nation describe their expectations of retirement and their views of how older workers are treated in the workplace." (John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development) Report: Cost of Employee Benefits in Small and Large Businesses (PDF) 67 pages. Excerpt: "A new report ... released by the Office of Advocacy details the cost of employee benefits by firm size. The report specifically looks at the cost of health insurance, pension plans, paid vacation, and sick leave." (Small Business Administration) Domestic Partner Pension Bill Heads to California Assembly Vote Excerpt: "Legislation to allow hundreds of California state workers who retired prior to January 1, 2005 to take advantage of the state's Domestic Partnership law is heading to a full vote in the Assembly." (365G.ay.com) Call to Duty Won't Affect Benefits of Massachusetts State Employees Excerpt: "State employees will not lose their salary, pension or health benefits if they are called up for active duty in the military under legislation approved by the House and Senate Thursday. The plan mirrors an existing law that was set to expire on Sept. 11 of this year." (Sentinel & Enterprise) NCCMP's 'Legislative Scorecard' Page Updated for August 2005 Excerpt: "NCCMP has culled proposed legislation from the current Congressional session. The chart below describes those bills and resolutions that we feel are of interest to our multiemployer pension and health plans. The chart also tracks bill status and gives our comments to the upcoming legislation." (National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans) Newly Posted Events Benefits 2010 -- What is Consumerism and Where is it Taking Us? Nationwide on September 15, 2005 presented by Employee Benefit News Benefits Outsourcing: An In-Depth Look at a Maturing Industry Nationwide on September 14, 2005 presented by Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP Newly Posted Press Releases PBGC Protects Pensions At Westpoint Stevens (Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)) Treasury Releases Regulations on Valuation of Annuity Contracts Involved in Roth Conversions (U.S. Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service) MetLife Study Reveals Fortune 100 Employee Benefits Trends (MetLife) The Living Will Solution...Online 24/7 and Free (ad hoc America, Inc.) HSA Bank Launches National HSA Education Initiative (HSA Bank) New Jersey Executive Indicted for Embezzling $500,000 From Pension Plan (U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration) Snowe: Pass Association Health Plans for Small Businesses; Cites Study Detailing Barriers to Affordable Health Care (U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)) Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings Defined Contribution Plan Administrator for Benefit Consulting Group, LLC in NY Account Executive for DailyAccess Corporation in AL Employee Benefits Tax (EB) Manager for Deloitte in FL Participant Education Consultant for The Vanguard Group in PA Human Resources Generalist (PEO) for ADP TotalSource in NY Sr. Benefits Administrator for Buck Consultants an ACS Company in GA Senior Director, Employee Benefits for Oshkosh Truck Corporation in WI Retirement Consultant for Freedom One Financial Group in MI Client Relationship Manager for Great-West Retirement Services 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. 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