BenefitsLink Welfare Plans Newsletter March 17, 2006 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 2,700 job-seekers. Click here to see how easy it is to place an ad! Response to Remarks by Michael H. Moskow on Public Pension and Retiree Health Plans (PDF) 7 pages. Excerpt: "[Regarding] remarks to the State and Local Government Pension Forum on February 28 [the authors] recognize [Mr. Moskow's] concerns about public pension funding and the potentially large liabilities related to retiree health care benefits." (Gabriel, Roeder, Smith & Company and National Association of State Retirement Administrators) Employee Benefits Alert: Severance? It's Not What It Used to Be Excerpt: "Issue No. 7 in the Mintz Levin Deferred Compensation Advisory Series provides a synopsis of Code §409A's treatment of severance pay and what to be on the look out for in crafting severance arrangements." (Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.) City of San Diego's Retiree Health Care Liability at $1 Billion Excerpt: "San Diego's long-term retiree health care liability is estimated at nearly $1 billion, according to a report released [March 14], and could grow to $1.8 billion by 2015 if the city doesn't end a practice of paying only the minimum for retiree health costs each year." (The San Diego Union-Tribune) Healthy New York: A Poor Fix to a Dysfunctional Insurance System (PDF) 3 pages. Excerpt: "Known as Healthy New York, the program combines a private mandate-lite benefit plan with a state reinsurance subsidy, and is only available to lower-income workers." (Council for Affordable Health Insurance) Panel Says Interoperability Will Improve Health Care Excerpt: "According to some estimates, full implementation of interoperability would save the health care industry $78 billion a year, or 5 percent of its total costs, ...." (Government Health IT) Fighting Off Health Care Insurance Headaches Excerpt: "Rising premiums have made it difficult for small businesses to provide health insurance. A good plan [would be to c]onsider many options." (BusinessWeek Online) Consumer-Driven Health Plans a Growing Health Care Offering from Employers Excerpt: "A growing number of US employers are implementing consumer-driven health plans (CDHP) to help control rising costs, according to a study from Watson Wyatt Worldwide and the National Business Group on Health." (PLANSPONSOR.com: one-time registration required) New Jersey to Allow Parents to Insure Unmarried Adult Children to Age 30 Excerpt: "In New Jersey, you can be a kid until you're 30 -- or at least you can be a dependent on a parent's health insurance plan." (USA TODAY) Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Approves Bill on Association Health Plans Excerpt: "The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on [March 15] voted 11-9 along party lines to approve a bill (S 1955) that would allow small businesses to form association health plans under certain conditions, CongressDaily reports ...." (Kaiser Family Foundation) Opinion: Before We Go 'Single Payer' -- Insurance Reforms We Should Try Excerpt: "Krugman and Wells are persuasive -- it's not a hard sell -- about the nightmarish complexity and administrative costs of the current fragmented system. But they don't do much more than simply assert that a single, government-run insurance program would be more efficient." (Michael Kinsley via The Washington Post; one-time registration required) Canine Companions at Work Enhance Corporate Culture Excerpt: "Loyalty appears to be the juicy reward for employers that permit their dog-loving employees to bring pets to work." (BenefitNews Connect) Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General Tailoring Benefit Communications for Spanish-Speakers Excerpt: "Spanish-speaking employees have different attitudes toward insurance and respond to different communication styles than their English-speaking counterparts, something that benefit managers may wish to consider in planning and designing their benefit communications." (BenefitNews Connect) National Employee Benefits Day Excerpt: "The White House has issued a Presidential Message sending greetings to the International Foundation members as we celebrate the third National Employee Benefits Day. Today, the International Foundation encourages you to take pride in the critical role you play to ensure benefits coverage for plan participants. As a trustee, administrator, advisor or benefits manager, your duties are complex and carry significant gravity." (International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans) Newly Posted Events 2005 Form 5500, Schedule A to SSA and Back Again - Audio Conference Nationwide on April 27, 2006 presented by Thompson Interactive, A Division of Thompson Publishing Group Catch-Up Contributions - Basics and Beyond Nationwide on April 25, 2006 presented by SunGard Corbel New Options for Part-timers - The Best of Both Worlds Nationwide on April 6, 2006 presented by SunGard Corbel Spring 2006 Webinar Series Nationwide on March 28, 2006 presented by ASPPA (American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries) Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings Pension Analyst II for SouthEastern Employee Benefit Services, Inc. a subsidiary of First Charter Bank in NC Manager, Operations for BISYS Retirement Services in PA Retirement Services Associate for 401kExchange in FL Retirement Plan Administrator for PensionOne Advisors in CA Senior Benefits Specialist for Olympus America in PA Lead Retirement Plan Specialist for Financial Services Company (c/o Gundersen Partners Executive Search) in Benefits Analyst (Retirement Plans) for Scripps Health in CA Senior Pension Administrator/Consultant for Chambers Benefit Group, APC in NM Document and Fiduciary Compliance Coordinator for Actuarial Consultants, Inc. in CA Senior Administrator for CJA and Associates in IL Handy Links: View Today's Active Message Threads Search BenefitsLink Using the Web for Employee Benefits Research (hypertext article) Employee Benefits Library Copyright 2006 BenefitsLink.com, Inc.; except that you may reprint this newsletter in full (including this sentence) without obtaining our permission. 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