BenefitsLink Welfare Plans Newsletter December 5, 2005 Today's sponsor: The BenefitsLink Jobs Board (Click on company name or banner to learn more.) Where the best benefits employers find the best candidates Fill your employee benefits job openings fast by advertising on BenefitsLink. What better place to find qualified candidates? Your help wanted ad will be listed in the BenefitsLink Newsletter, will be seen by thousands of candidates who view our listings online, and will be emailed to over 2,800 job-seekers. Click here to see how easy it is to place an ad! Text of Rev. Proc. 2005-78: Updated Mileage Rates (PDF) 31 pages. Excerpt: "This revenue procedure updates Rev. Proc. 2004-64, 2004-49 I.R.B. 898, as modified by Announcement 2005-71, 2005-41 I.R.B. 714, and provides optional standard mileage rates for employees, self-employed individuals, or other taxpayers to use in computing the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical, or moving expense purposes." (Internal Revenue Service) Some Relief In Sight For Pres.cription Drug Costs, Aon Health Care Trend Survey Predicts Excerpt: "Although pres.cription drug costs will continue to increase in the double digits next year, the rate of growth will be lower than the medical trend for the first time in the past four years, according to Aon Consulting's latest Health Care Trend Survey of 70 health insurers. The survey participants anticipated an average pres.cription drug trend of 11.8% for 2006, compared with the anticipated 12.9% for HMOs and 13% for preferred provider organizations and point-of-service plans." (Spencer's Benefits Reports) Overview: IRS Says No HSA Contributions during FSA Grace Period (PDF) 2 pages. Excerpt: "Earlier this year, IRS announced that employers may grant a grace period of up to 2-1/2 months for participants enrolled in health FSAs (flexible spending accounts). During the grace period, they may incur expenses and be reimbursed from any unused account balance from the prior year. A recent IRS Notice clarifies that an individual cannot make contributions to an HSA (health savings account) during the FSA grace period, unless the FSA is amended to be HSA compatible." (Aon Consulting) Viewpoint from Richard D. Quinn: You Have 26 Days, or .838 Months to Reply ... Excerpt: "We've tackled some serious topics in the past year, including health care, retirement, individual responsibility and my perennial favorite, coverage for contraceptives. But now it's time for me to face the music and examine one of the most complex subjects of all - the stuff that rules and regulations are made of." (Employee Benefit News) Two-Thirds of Employers to Offer Disability Disease Management Excerpt: "While consumer-directed health plans get all the press, many employers today offer disease management benefits, and a significant additional portion is eyeing this benefit for future offerings. According to the Employee Benefit News/Forrester Research 2005 Benefits Strategy and Technology Study, 45% of all employers currently offer disease management benefits and another 22% intend to offer this benefit by 2006." (BenefitNews.com) Giving Employees Gifts May Require Giving to the Tax Collector Too Excerpt: "The end of the year is a traditional time for employers to give gifts to their employees. While it is customary to think of gifts as having no tax consequences for the recipient, the Internal Revenue Code (Code) does not treat all gifts the same." (Littler Mendelson P.C.) Employees Still Searching for Equilibrium in the Work-Life Balancing Act Excerpt: "[E]mployers continue to offer more flexibility and add policies and programs that support a balance between work and living, like child-care assistance, tuition reimbursement and paid leave for new fathers as well as mothers. The reasoning goes that a happy worker is healthier and more productive, saving the company money on health care and turnover costs." (The New York Times; one-time registration required) Transit Benefits Interest Accelerates As Gas Prices Climb Excerpt: "Expensive gasoline, due in part to the economic fallout from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the war in Iraq, is fueling new interest in transportation benefits, such as qualified transportation expense plans and carpooling arrangements." (Employee Benefit News) Testimony: FEHBP -- Differences in Health Care Prices Linked to Competition, Other Factors Excerpt: "This statement is based on GAO's August 2005 report entitled Federal Employees Health Benefits Program: Competition and Other Factors Linked to Wide Variation in Health Care Prices (GAO-05-856). It focuses on (1) factors that underlie area differences in price and (2) the contribution of price to geographic differences in spending on health care. [Highlights are at http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06281thigh.pdf.]" (U.S. Government Accountability Office) COBRA Administration Tips Excerpt: "Every month the OnQue staff responds to numerous COBRA questions posed by ... broker and employer customers. The questions [fielded] over a month's time typically cover a broad range of COBRA subtopics, from the commonplace to the obscure, .... This COBRA Tip(tm) is the first in a series of articles in which [OnQue Technologies, Inc.] offer a smattering of the more interesting and, hopefully, informative COBRA questions and answers." (OnQue Technologies, Inc.) Compliance Assistance Guide: Health Benefits Coverage under Federal Law, September 2005 (PDF) 1 pages. This table of contents provides links to each section of the guide. (U.S. Employee Benefits Security Administration) Editorial: Path to Profitable Disease Management Programs Excerpt: "Hundreds of American companies and health plans have put disease management programs in place, enabling the DM industry to grow from $85 million in 1997 to more than $600 million in 2002. Simply offering a DM program to employees does not guarantee lower health care costs, however, says Thomson Medstat, which works with employers to determine the cost and quality impact of their health care initiatives." (Employee Benefit News) IOM Releases Report on Health Care Performance Measurement and Reporting Excerpt: "The Institute of Medicine on Thursday released a report that recommends Congress establish an independent panel within HHS to manage a national system on health care performance measurement and reporting, AHA News reports. The recommended system would expand on the work already being done by organizations such as the Hospital Quality Alliance." (California HealthCare Foundation) Consumers and Insurers Struggle to Define 'Affordable' Health Care Excerpt: "With health insurance premiums continuing to rise at a pace averaging four times the rate of inflation, few businesses are content to sit back and do nothing. They are taking control--redesigning plans, raising deductibles, hiking co-pays, limiting drug benefits and eying consumer-driven plans in an attempt to keep costs down. And insurers like BlueShield are taking a proactive approach, offering more options and spending more time talking to clients." (The Business Review (Albany) via bizjournals.com; one-time registration required) Health Plan Costs Come under Fire in California Excerpt: "At a [December 1] hearing in L.A., Garamendi grills insurance company executives about why premiums have soared 60% in four years." (Los Angeles Times via Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights) Employers Wary As Demand Swells for Infertility Treatment Excerpt: "As more couples seek treatment for infertility, some consumer advocates are pushing to expand insurance coverage for assisted reproductive technologies such as in-vitro fertilization. They're enlisting citizens to contact elected officials and teaching workers how to ask their company to add infertility coverage to the health plan." (Employee Benefit News) Blue Cross and Blue Shield to Launch Bank Excerpt: "The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association wants to launch a bank that will administer its consumer-directed health plans, a responsibility currently shared by third-party financial institutions." (The Washington Post; one-time registration required) Employer-Backed Health Care Is Here to Stay, for Lack of a Better Choice Excerpt: "So, are we in the final days of the company health plan? Probably not. Frustrations with the status quo notwithstanding, the current system of providing insurance to most working Americans through their employers is not likely to disappear, according to policy analysts and consultants in Washington and around the country." (The New York Times; one-time registration required) Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General Increase in Foreign Workers Puts Spotlight on Communication of Benefits Excerpt: "The population of foreign workers in the United States is expected to grow significantly in the near future, creating new challenges for HR and benefits managers." (Employee Benefit News) British G.ay Couples Register for Unions Excerpt: "The law, passed last year despite some opposition from Parliament's unelected House of Lords, gives same-sex couples the same social security, tax, pension and inheritance rights as married ones." (The Conservative Voice) G.ay Couples Face Continued Legal Battles Excerpt: "While a few states have recognized same-sex couples, many more are strengthening bans on g.ay marriage. Conservatives in some places -- including Michigan and Ohio -- are now taking aim at existing domestic-partner benefit policies." (AP via The New York Times; one-time registration required) Employee Benefits that Meet Moms' Needs -- Then and Now Excerpt: "Much about a society, a corporate culture and a national economy can be transformed in 20 years. The sea change for working mothers has been the emergence of flexibility in work hours and locations, says deputy editor Della Delafuente at Working Mother magazine, which has been following workplace issues and ranking the best companies for working mothers for two decades." (Employee Benefit News) 'The People Are Just Fed Up with Their Benefits Being Cut,' One Employee Remarks. Excerpt: "From health care to disability to pensions, across many industries, workers today are realizing with dismay that company-provided benefits are costing them more and providing them less. 'Every benefit cut that you have is a cut in your wages,' says the local president of the Communication Workers of America union Gary McClure. 'It's a cut in your ability to provide for your family.'" (CBS News) Rewriting the Social Contract at Work Excerpt: "I.B.M., like many other companies, has rewritten the implied social contract with its employees. Cutbacks and controversy have been part of the process. I.B.M. placed a cap on medical benefits for retirees, and eliminated the traditional pension plan for new hires. And a federal judge ruled in 2003 that changes I.B.M. made in its pension plan amounted to discrimination against older workers." (The New York Times; one-time registration required) Mr. Ford's Wrong Turn: Why U.S. Automakers Can't Blame Japan Excerpt: "The real problem for Ford, and the one that presents a dilemma for American society, is that an industrial-social system pioneered in Detroit in the 1930s has given way to another industrial-social system pioneered by Toyota in the post-World War II era." (The Washington Post; one-time registration required) Newly Posted Press Releases 401khelpcenter.com Introduces New TPA Directory (401khelpcenter.com, LLC) IRS Announces 2006 Standard Mileage Rates (Internal Revenue Service (IRS)) Superior Essex Chooses CitiStreet For DC Plan Administration (CitiStreet) BPI myCafeteriaPlan, a National Third Party Administrator (TPA) is Still Accepting New 2006 Calendar Plan Year Business for FSA and HRA Plans (BPI - myCafeteriaPlan) Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings Pension Plan Design Specialist for American National Insurance Company in TX Account Executive - Client Services for Diversified Investment Advisors in AZ, CA, CO Employee Benefits Administrator - Group Benefits Division for Growing Wealth Management, Insurance and Benefits Company in NJ Compliance Specialist for The Retirement Plan Company, LLC in ANY STATE Health & Welfare Benefits Manager for Denver-based Fortune 500 global manufacturer in CO Qualified Plan Administrator/Actuary for Experienced administrator or actuary wanting to be in the Defined Contribution Arena in IL Defined Contribution/401(k) Administrator for TPA Firm in Detroit Area (Northwest Suburbs) in MI 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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