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| November 13, 2007 |
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(a) New Guidance Documents
(None today.)
(b) News
A Health Plan for Wal-Mart with Less Stinginess
Excerpt: "The company, according to data available for the first time, is offering better coverage to a greater number of workers. Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, provides insurance to 100,000 more workers than it did just three years ago -- and it is now easier for many to sign up for health care at Wal-Mart than at its rival, Target, whose reputation glows in comparison." (The New York Times; free registration required)
Survey Indicates Health Plans Could Do Better on Information Provision
Excerpt: "According to the eValue8 report of health plan performance released by the non-profit National Business Coalition on Health (NBCH), health plans could do a better job of sharing important information with their customers." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)
(c) Summaries of Guidance; Filed Comments
Administrative Ambiguities Scuttle Plan Administrator's Subrogation Claims on Personal Injury Recovery
Excerpt: "A purportedly self-funded plan can come very close to appearing to be a fully insured plan. Mulholland v. UFCW Local 1776 Participating Employers Health and Welfare Fund, demonstrates that the question of self-funded status goes beyond a mere invocation of self-funded status. Ultimately, the court found insufficient evidence by the defendant to conclude that the plan was self-funded." (Health Plan Law blog by Attorney Roy F. Harmon III)
COBRA Coverage May Be Terminated if Qualified Beneficiary Fails to Re-Enroll During Open Enrollment
Excerpt: "EBIA Comment: We agree with the court's reasoning and interpretation of the COBRA regulations. We also think that the outcome in this case was dictated in large part by the clarity of the employer's communications regarding open enrollment." (Employee Benefits Institute of America)
(d) Trends, Surveys, Research
GM-UAW Deal Suggests New Approaches to Financing Retiree Medical Benefits
Excerpt: "The agreement by GM and the UAW to finance retiree medical benefits with a VEBA has caught the attention of other employers with large postretirement medical liabilities. Is this type of financing arrangement, or some alternative, suitable for managing the retiree medical obligations of your organization? What are the possible advantages? The risks?" (Towers Perrin)
Benefits Consultants Expect Strong CDH Growth in 2008, ICDC/ISCEBS Study Finds (PDF)
Pages 1, 6-7 of 9 pages. Excerpt: "Several consultants said that requiring the cost of prescription drugs to be included in the deductible for HSA-based plans is a major hurdle. And other respondents said the threat of an illness early in the year -- before an HSA balance is built up -- often keeps employees from enrolling in an HDHP." (International Society of Certified Employee Benefit Specialists via AISHealth.com)
Workers To Pay for Poor Health Habits
Excerpt: "Employers frustrated with mounting health-care costs for their workers have tried dangling a carrot to discourage bad habits such as smoking as well as behaviors that can lead to obesity, uncontrolled diabetes or high blood pressure. Now some employers are beginning to brandish a stick, docking pay, hiking insurance premiums or even banning employees from the workplace if they don't comply with off-site smoking bans." (The Washington Post; free registration required)
Paying People to Lose Weight Helps Drop Pounds and Health Care Costs
Excerpt: "Economists have recently shown that if you pay people enough money, they will lose significant weight. Corporate America is starting to integrate cash incentives into wellness plans in hopes of reducing its health-care costs." (The Washington Post; free registration required)
New Poll Finds Weight-Loss at the Top of Employees' Health Agendas
Excerpt: "According to an online poll conducted by LifeCare Inc., a Shelton, Conn.-based wellness consultancy, nearly half (49 percent) of employees from among the firm's 1,500 client organizations cited 'weight management' as their top concern, compared with 18 percent who cited 'general health,' 11 percent who selected 'heart health' and just 1 percent who chose 'smoking cessation.' Nevertheless, relatively few employers offer exercise equipment to help workers shed those extra pounds, according to a poll from Steelcase, a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based manufacturer of office furniture." (Human Resource Executive Online; free registration required)
The Latest from the Consumer-Driven Marketplace
Excerpt: "From Spencer's Benefits Reports: Medical cost increases for consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs) are less than half the increases for traditional HMOs and PPOs, according to a CIGNA health care study of its own members' experience." (Wolters Kluwer Financial Services)
With Health Care Costs Rising, Hospitals Face a Tougher Sell for Donations
Excerpt: "While America's private and public medical institutions continue to have success raising money -- $8 billion last year alone -- fund-raisers and others say that the rising cost of health care is an issue they must address sometimes with potential donors." (The New York Times; free registration required)
Blackstone Targets Health Costs: $1.5 Billion in Premiums for Workers at 52 Companies
Excerpt: "In what may be one of the firm's most creative management strategies to date, Blackstone recently hired physician Alan Muney as a new executive director. Mr. Muney's charge is to audit and reform the private health-care programs in place at 52 Blackstone-owned companies to cut back the $1.5 billion in insurance premiums and other fees the companies collectively pay to their health plan providers each year." (Financial Week; free registration required)
Stress Not Addressed in the Workplace
Excerpt: "Companies need to better address stress and mental health issues in the workplace, as employees increasingly feel their employers do not realize the severity of the issue. A whopping 94% of workers report that their stress level affects their job performance, according to a recent survey from Meritain Health and the Partnership for Workplace Mental Health." (Employee Benefit News; free registration required)
Toolkit Outlines Employer Best Practices in Health Coverage for Mothers, Children and Adolescents
Excerpt: "To help employers improve the health of children, adolescents, and women of childbearing age, as well as potentially reduce health care costs, the National Business Group on Health recently unveiled a comprehensive publication for employers." (Employee Benefit News; free registration required)
(e) Policy, Opinion, Advocacy
Maine's Dirigo Health Reform of 2003 (PDF)
16 pages. Excerpt: "[This report] is a thorough examination of the state's health care expansion. It discusses program eligibility, how much people pay for the different types of coverage, what benefits they receive, how the expansion is financed, how it reforms the state's insurance regulations, lessons learned so far, and the future of health reform in Maine." (Families USA)
The Long-Term Outlook for Health Care Spending (PDF)
35 pages. Excerpt: "The goal of the projections in this study is to examine the implications of a continuation of current federal law, rather than to make a prediction of the future. Under that assumption, however, federal spending on health care would eventually reach unsustainable levels. In reality, federal law will change in the future, ensuring that the basis for the projections will not turn out to be correct, but the projections nevertheless provide a useful measure of the scope of the problem facing the nation." (U.S. Congressional Budget Office)
American Benefits Council Summary of COBRA Provisions in the Trade and Globalization Assistance Act of 2007 (PDF)
4 pages. Excerpt: "On October 31, 2007, the House passed H.R. 3920, the Trade and Globalization Assistance Act of 2007, which amends certain health provisions of the Trade Act of 2002. The 2002 Trade Act created a health care tax credit of 65% of the cost of qualified health insurance coverage for certain workers who were terminated due to foreign competition. The Act also gave these workers a second COBRA election period." (American Benefits Council)
Employer-Provided Insurance Continues to Decline -- Proposals for Coverage Are Considered
Excerpt: "[There are] ongoing discussions among policymakers, politicians and some business leaders over whether to alter the link between employment and insurance. Several ideas have been floated, including a range of proposals in Congress." (USA TODAY)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
IRS to Publish Reporting Forms for Corporate-Owned Life Insurance (PDF)
2 pages. The target document basically indicates as a technical matter that the IRS at some point will be issuing forms for the reporting of employer-owned life insurance contracts as prescribed by the Pension Protection Act; the forms are not included in the document. Excerpt: "These temporary regulations provide that the Commissioner may prescribe the form and manner of satisfying the reporting requirements imposed by section 6039I on applicable policyholders owning one or more employer-owned life insurance contracts issued after August 17, 2006. The regulations are effective on November 13, 2007, and apply to taxable years ending after that date." (Internal Revenue Service)
Summary of FASB Statement 123R Share-Based Payment: Revised 11/09/07 (PDF)
14 pagesl Excerpt: "[Along with a background overview, this paper] summarizes the most pertinent provisions of Statement 123R and related staff guidance provided by the FASB and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)." (Frederic W. Cook & Co., Inc.)
Working Paper: Estimating the Health Effects of Retirement (PDF)
36 pages. Excerpt: "We estimate the magnitude of any direct effect of retirement on health. Since retirement is endogenous to heath, it is not possible to estimate this effect by comparing the health of individuals before and after they retire. As an alternative we use institutional features of the pension system in the United Kingdom that are exogenous to the individual to isolate exogenous variation in retirement behavior. Data used will include both vital statistics and survey data that include both 'objective' physical measurements and respondent self-reports. We find no evidence of negative health effects of retirement and some evidence that there may be a positive effect, at least for men." (University of Michigan Retirement Research Center)
Working Paper: The Effects of Health Insurance and Self-Insurance on Retirement Behavior (PDF)
89 pages. Excerpt: "This paper provides an empirical analysis of the effect of employer-provided health insurance and Medicare in determining retirement behavior." (University of Michigan Retirement Research Center)
Newly Posted Events
Employee Benefits Legal Update
in Pennsylvania on November 15, 2007
presented by Central Pennsylvania Chapter - ISCEBS
Recent Trends in Employer-Sponsored Retiree Health Benefits and the Early Impact of Medicare part D
in Illinois on November 14, 2007
presented by The Center for Tax Law and Employee Benefits at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago
Newly Posted Press Releases
NIPA Business Management Conference Expected to be the Largest Ever
National Institute of Pension Administrators
Financial Engines Reaches $15 Billion in Managed Accounts
Financial Engines, Inc.
Ben Stein to All Americans: Firm-up Retirement Years with a "Financial Fitness Plan" During National Retirement Planning Week 2007
National Retirement Planning Coalition (NRPC)
Metrics Partners Announces 401kAds
Metrics Partners
Prudential Helps Take the ‘Work’ Out of Work Site Benefits Enrollment
Prudential Financial, Inc.
National Survey Finds Employers are Challenging Health Plans to Better Use Resources to Prevent Illness and Improve Patient Safety
National Business Coalition on Health
NCQA Online Tool Demonstrates How Better Health Care Costs Less
National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA)
Gift Cards Rival Cash As Employee Incentive
First Data
Wolf Popper LLP Files 401k Class Action Against Citigroup
Wolf Popper LLP
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
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Defined Benefit Administration Software IT Consultant
for Winklevoss Technologies
in CT
DC Compliance Specialist
for Trinity Pension Consultants
in OH
Plan Administrator/Specialist
for Major LA TPA
in CA
Defined Contribution Plan Administrator
for Pension Plan Professionals, Inc.
in FL
Retirement Services District Manager
for ADP
in CA, FL, IL, MI, MN, NM, TN
401(k)/DC Administrator (Junior)
for Columbia Benefits Consultants, Inc.
in MD
Pension Analyst
for REPTECH
in CO
Billing Analyst
for Republic National Distributing Company, Atlanta, GA (www.rndc-usa.com)
in GA
Director, Compensation and Benefits
for Benchmark Assisted Living
in MA
Operations Liaison/Supervisor
for Associated Pension Consultants
in CA
Pension 401(k) Administrator
for Actuaries and Associates
in TX
Handy Links:
- View Today's Active Message Threads
- Using the Web for Employee Benefits Research (hypertext article)
- Employee Benefits Library
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