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June 11, 2007
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Some Companies Start Twisting Employees' Arms to Get Them to Take Vacation
Excerpt: "As summer vacation season swings into gear . . . employers are keeping watch. In a twist, businesses are stepping up efforts to ensure workers get away from it all. Some cite productivity issues - all work and no play makes Jill a less-efficient worker. Others see accrued vacation time as a ticking financial time bomb that turns paid days off into another payout rather than a perk that helps workers keep their edge." (TwinCities.com)

Health Costs Push Companies to Set Targets for Workers
Excerpt: "WATCH your cholesterol and triglycerides. Your boss and fellow workers are counting on it. As the nation's employers aim to get their money's worth from ever more expensive medical insurance, many are playing a bigger role in managing and monitoring their workers' health." (The New York Times; free registration required)

Dead Man's Parents Eligible for Accidental Death Benefits
Excerpt: "Even though a Colorado man's blood alcohol level was almost three times the legal limit for being drunk when he was killed in a rollover car crash, his parents are still entitled to accidental death payments from an accidental death policy." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)

Recoupment of Overpayments May Violate ERISA Requirements
Excerpt: "Whether plans may recover overpayments and, if so, in what manner, has been complicated by the Supreme Court rulings as to the scope of 'appropriate equitable relief' under ERISA Section 501(a)(3)." (Health Plan Law blog by Attorney Roy F. Harmon III)

Washington Community of Bellevue Opts for Same-Sex Partner Benefits
Excerpt: "City of Bellevue, Washington workers now in committed same-sex relationships will be able to have their partners get health insurance, family leave and a host of other benefits previously offered only to married couples." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)

Wisconsin Committee Rejects Domestic Partner Benefits for State Workers
Excerpt: "A budget committee in Wisconsin shot down efforts by Governor Jim Doyle to extend state benefits to domestic partners of employees." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)

Overview of Amicus Brief in LaRue v. DeWolff, Boberg & Associates, Inc.: 'Appropriate Equitable Relief'
Excerpt: "The brief distinguishes the decision of the Court in Mertens v. Hewitt Associates, 508 U.S. 248 (1993) (holding that 'appropriate equitable relief' does not permit money damages against actuary) on the grounds that LaRue involves a request for monetary relief against a fiduciary whereas Mertens involved a claim against a non-fiduciary." (Health Plan Law blog by Attorney Roy F. Harmon III)

Sick Time Abuse High in Summer; Paid-Time-Off Bank Would Be Useful, According to Survey
Excerpt: "The Summer Absenteeism survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, found that 39% of full-time employees have called in sick to work to enjoy a day off during the summer vacation season. Kronos calls this trend 'Seasonal Affective Syndrome' (SAS) which, the company says, is 'a huge issue for employers.'" (Wolters Kluwer Law & Business)

Overview: Court Permits Reduction in Retiree Benefits to Coordinate with Medicare (PDF)
Excerpt: "On June 4, 2007, the Federal Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit allowed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to implement its proposed regulation permitting employers to reduce or eliminate employer-sponsored etiree health benefits when retirees become eligible for Medicare or for a state-sponsored retiree health program." (Seyfarth Shaw LLP)

COBRA Requires Good-Faith Effort at Rights Notice Delivery
Excerpt: "The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it could not be sure whether an employer knowingly sent a terminated employee's Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) notice to the wrong address, but said that a good-faith effort to deliver the notice to the correct address is required." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)

GM, Ford, Chrysler Discuss Joint Health-Care Fund, People Say
Excerpt: "General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler may create an independent health-insurance fund to trim their combined $114 billion in future retiree health-care obligations, five people with direct knowledge of the talks said." (Bloomberg News)

Opinion: Disease Management: Panacea, Another False Hope, or Something in Between?
Excerpt: "There is no solid evidence yet that commercial for-profit disease management vendors will save money and improve care of chronic illness on a long-term basis. It is much more likely that the current enthusiasm among employers and insurers for outsourced disease management programs will end up as just one more policy failure, undermining primary care and delaying increasingly urgent health care reform." (Annals of Family Medicine via Physicians for a National Health Program)

Pinning Down the Money Value of a Person's Life
Excerpt: "The exercise has enormous real-world implications that are reverberating as health care technology becomes more expensive and health care spending becomes a bigger burden on companies, taxpayers and patients. The price of health is part of the calculus in determining whether a new medicine or treatment is worth the cost." (The New York Times; free registration required)

Who Pays for Efficiency in Health Care Delivery?
Excerpt: "Indeed, the quest to save dollars in the nation's $2.1 trillion annual health care bill is becoming a lucrative market of its own. Thousands of companies, large and small, are pitching cost-saving ideas that range from electronic patient records to new medical devices." (The New York Times; free registration required)

Health Insurance Industry Warns Colorado Health Law Will Drive Up Rates
Excerpt: "Insurance carriers say a new law that stops small-group insurers from giving discounts to employers with healthy employees will result in higher premiums for most small businesses and fewer plans to choose from and could force some companies to drop coverage altogether." (The Denver Business Journal via bizjournals.com; free registration required)

Mandatory Health Insurance Coverage Easier Said Than Done
Excerpt: "[Massachusetts] is discovering that making health insurance mandatory is easier said than done. It has spent the past year dealing with questions about how much basic coverage people need, and how much they can be expected to pay. (The poorest residents receive free or subsidized coverage.)" (The New York Times; free registration required)

Del. Senate Passes Bill To Provide State Regulators with More Authority To Review Health Ins. Rates
Excerpt: "The Delaware Senate . . . voted 17-3 to approve a bill (SB 37) that would allow state insurance regulators to have the same authority to review health insurance premium rates as they have over auto and homeowner insurance rates, the Wilmington News Journal reports." (Kaiser Family Foundation)

Blue Cross of California's Payment to Parent Company: Wellpoint Dividend Is Questioned
Excerpt: "State regulators are investigating whether a $950-million dividend Blue Cross of California sent to its Indianapolis-based parent violates an agreement the companies made to limit such payments to keep premiums down and maintain the quality of healthcare benefits, officials said . . . ." (Los Angeles Times via Physicians for a National Health Program)

Video/Slides/Transcript: Bright Ideas About Health Care: Lessons Learned from the Light Bulb
Excerpt: "The story of the light bulb involves a high-minded, value-based objective-- energy conservation coupled with addressing the dangers of global warming. In the case of health care, this objective would be... preventive health care for all." (Health Politics with Dr. Mike Magee)

Health Savings Accounts Make Sense if You're Physically and Fiscally Fit
Excerpt: "To be eligible for a health savings account, consumers must first enroll in a high-deductible health-insurance plan. According to federal rules governing HSAs, the minimum deductible for a qualifying health plan this year is $1,100 for a single person or $2,200 for a family." (The Washington Post; free registration required)

Gingrich's Ideas Benefit Contributors to Think Tank
Excerpt: "Potential GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has promoted public policy positions that closely track the financial interests of companies that underwrite a think tank he founded. The Center for Health Transformation is part of an elaborate consulting and communications empire Gingrich has built since he left Congress under a political cloud in January 1999." (AP via The New York Times; free registration required)

Substance Abuse Benefits: Still Limited After All These Years
Excerpt: "[T]his study examines the state of employer-sponsored insurance substance abuse benefits in 2006 and how benefits compare to coverage for medical-surgical services. In 2006, 88 percent of insured workers had some coverage for substance abuse services. Current substance abuse benefits, however, do not provide the same protection afforded under medical-surgical benefits." (Health Affairs)

New Hampshire House Passes Bill To Extend Health Insurance to Divorced Spouses
Excerpt: "The New Hampshire House . . . voted 227-122 to approve a bill (SB 197) that would require health insurers to allow the spouses of divorced members to remain covered under the policies of their former spouses for as long as three years or until one of the former spouses remarries, the AP/Manchester Union Leader reports." (Kaiser Family Foundation)

Debating Presidential Candidates' Health Care Policies
Excerpt: "Many of the candidates discussed their views of health-care reform during recent Democratic and Republican debates. A variety of approaches were discussed and it would be wise to listen carefully to them all." (Dallas Salisbury via Human Resource Executive Online; free registration required)

Proposed IRS HSA Contribution Rule Could Help Some Small Employers
Excerpt: "The rule, however, will affect relatively few large employers because most of them make pretax HSA contributions through a cafeteria plan . . . ." (INSIDE CONSUMER-DIRECTED CARE via AISHealth.com)


Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General

Chart Showing Benefit Obligations of Several of California's Governmental Entities (PDF)
1 page. (Los Angeles Times; free registration required)

Navigating the Hazards of the Executive Benefits Arena
Excerpt: "[There] are a host of new regulatory mandates that companies will have to navigate if their executive benefits packages are to pass muster with federal authorities." (The National Underwriter Company; free registration or paid subscription required)

SEC Says Executive Pay Disclosures Work OK
Excerpt: "The nation's top securities regulator says he is generally satisfied that new disclosure rules are giving investors a clearer picture of how much public companies are paying top executives and provide useful insight into the reasoning underlying compensation awards." (AP via The Washington Post; free registration required)

National Compensation Survey: Employee Benefits in Private Industry in the U.S., 2005 (PDF)
98 pages. Excerpt: "This bulletin includes data on detailed provisions of healthcare and retirement plans offered as employee benefits in private industry establishments. The period for compiling these data was June 2004 through December 2005; thus, they have a 2005 reference date." (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Hewitt Global Report: Latin America and the Caribbean, Monthly Legislative Update, May 2007 (PDF)
3 pages. Excerpt: "[The] monthly updates summarize recent legislative activity throughout Latin America, by country, for the following issues: labor environment, cost of employment, employment terms and conditions, retirement and social security, health care system, taxation of compensation and benefits, and issues for expatriate employees." (Hewitt Associates)

Hewitt Global Report: Europe, Africa, the Middle East Monthly Legislative Update (PDF)
7 pages. Excerpt: "[The] monthly updates summarize recent legislative activity . . ., by country, for the following issues: labor environment, cost of employment, employment terms and conditions, retirement and social security, health care system, taxation of compensation and benefits, and issues for expatriate employees." (Hewitt Associates)

Investigating Mislabeling of Workers in New York
Excerpt: "Gov. Eliot Spitzer is planning to step up enforcement against thousands of companies that illegally misclassify workers as independent contractors to cheat on taxes and skimp on employee benefits, the state labor commissioner said . . . ." (The New York Times; free registration required)


Newly Posted Events

Retirement Plan Fiduciary Responsibility
in North Carolina on July 19, 2007
presented by Presidium Retirement Advisers, Inc.


Newly Posted Press Releases

ftwilliam.com Announces the Integration of its Form 5500 Software with the Form 5500 Preparer's Manual
ftwilliam.com

Retiring Baby Boomers Creating Workforce Talent Shortage
Buck Consultants, an ACS Company

UNIFI to Help Plan Sponsors with Fiduciary Investment Requirements
UNIFI Companies Retirement Plans


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