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January 23, 2009

Here are the Web's best new links about compliance and cost aspects of plan operation, design and policy.


Today's sponsor is Employee Benefits Institute of America (EBIA)

(Click on company name or banner to learn more.)
Banner ad for Employee Benefits Institute of America (EBIA)

EBIA Adds a One-Two Punch to Your Employee Benefits Library!

Our Cafeteria Plans manual is the nation’s #1 resource for cafeteria plan sponsors and administrators. The Cafeteria Plans manual provides detailed coverage of all legal requirements for cafeteria plans, health FSAs, and DCAPs. Our Consumer-Driven Health Care manual is the country's best HSA and HRA Guidebook. With both manuals, subscribers get EBIA's top-notch analysis, copies of critical source documents, examples, administration tips, and sample documents. For more information, visit our manuals page.


Lawmakers Consider Dramatic COBRA Expansion
Excerpt: "The House Ways and Means Committee [January 22, 2009] marked up a bill that could subsidize the cost of continuing group health coverage for laid-off workers and cut workers' share of the premiums to 35%. Ways and Means members voted 24-13 to approve the bill, H.R. 598, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Title III of the bill is the Health Insurance Assistance for the Unemployed Act of 2009. House leaders will combine H.R. 598 with other bills to create H.R. 1, a new American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and bring the bill up for a vote on the floor next week, committee leaders say." (National Underwriter Life & Health)


'Cost-Effectiveness' Research Could Limit Patients' Access to Treatments, Opinion Piece States
Excerpt: "President Obama and House Democrats 'embrace the creation of a ... 'comparative effectiveness' entity that will do research on drugs and medical devices' -- similar to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in Great Britain, which evaluates new medical products' cost effectiveness before citizens gain access to them, Scott Gottlieb, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. While Obama and House Democrats 'claim that they don't want this to morph into a British-style agency that restricts access to medical products based on narrow cost criteria, ... provisions tucked into the fiscal stimulus bill betray their real intentions,' according to Gottlieb." (Kaiser Family Foundation)


Paid Parental Leave Bill for Federal Employees Reintroduced in Congress
Excerpt: "House lawmakers on Thursday reintroduced legislation that would provide paid parental leave benefits to all federal employees. The bill (H.R. 626), sponsored by Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.; Frank Wolf, R-Va.; Steny Hoyer, D-Md.; Danny K. Davis, D-Ill.; and Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., would provide all federal employees with four weeks of paid leave for the birth or adoption of a child. A similar measure passed the House in the 110th Congress. Companion legislation was introduced in the Senate but did not make it out of committee." (GovernmentExecutive.com)


Maintaining Health Insurance During a Recession: Likely COBRA Eligibility
Excerpt: "As the U.S. economic downturn continues and job losses mount, more working Americans are likely to lose access to affordable health benefits subsidized by their employers. Analysis of the 2007 Commonwealth Fund Biennial Health Insurance Survey finds that two of three working adults would be eligible to extend job-based coverage, under the 1985 Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) if they became unemployed. Under COBRA, however, unemployed workers would have to pay four to six times their current contribution at a time of sharply reduced income." (The Commonwealth Fund)


Data Mining & the HIPAA Privacy Rule
Excerpt: "The concept of data mining as a field of endeavor runs contrary to a central principle of HIPAA: 'Minimum Necessary. A central aspect of the Privacy Rule is the principle of 'minimum necessary' use and disclosure. A covered entity must make reasonable efforts to use, disclose, and request only the minimum amount of protected health information needed to accomplish the intended purpose of the use, disclosure, or request.'" (Health Plan Law)


Obama's National Health Records System Will Be Costly
Excerpt: "President Barack Obama has said that a national electronic health records system will be a priority in his first term, not just for streamlining workflow at hospitals and physician offices but to cut costs and improve the quality of health care. And while he has pledged to invest $10 billion a year over the next five years on the effort, the price tag for such a system could be closer to $100 billion over the next 10 years, according to experts. They also note that sticking to his five-year timetable could prove to be daunting. Money for the e-health records (EHR) system would come out of the $825 billion economic stimulus package Obama hopes to push through Congress." (Computerworld)


Firms Offer Employees Bigger Incentives for Healthy Living
Excerpt: "Affinia has become a leader in a growing employer movement that tries to motivate workers to quit smoking, start exercising, choose healthier foods and manage chronic conditions, such as diabetes. More employers are offering workers financial incentives -- worth hundreds of dollars in some cases -- to take steps to improve their health and stem the rising cost of their care." (USA TODAY)


Barring Smokers from Employment Isn't Right, Researchers Say
Excerpt: "Smoking bans in public buildings, workplaces, even at some outdoor venues are now commonplace. And becoming more common is the practice of barring smokers from employment. But this approach is unfair and may have unintended consequences that do more harm than good, say researchers in an essay published . . . in the journal Tobacco Control." (Los Angeles Times)


Lessons for Health Care from Behavioral Economics
Excerpt: "The emerging field of behavioral economics has yielded important insights into how individuals make choices. Standard economic theory assumes that individuals are rational, forward-looking consumers who make choices so as to maximize their utility (or happiness). However, numerous laboratory and field studies now show that individuals often have difficulty making wise choices. Difficulties are particularly likely when individuals are faced with decisions that involve uncertainty, tradeoffs between current and future costs and benefits, or significant complexity. Decisions relating to health care, such as whether to purchase health insurance, what plan to choose, and whether and when to consume health care, unfortunately exhibit all of these attributes. Yet the insights from behavioral economics generally have not been applied to the study of health care. A new working paper by researchers Jeffrey Liebman and Richard Zeckhauser, 'Simple Humans, Complex Insurance, Subtle Subsidies,' (NBER Working Paper 14330) seeks to apply such insights." (National Bureau of Economic Research; paid subscription or individual purchase required to retrieve fulltext)



Health Benefits Conference & Expo (HBCE) (Sponsor)

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Banner ad for Health Benefits Conference & Expo (HBCE)

Nat'l Health Benefits Conference & Expo (HBCE), Feb. 3-4, Tampa, FL

Sessions by: Intel, Corning, Toyota, TECO Energy, Broward County Schools, Burger King, SAS, Gulf Power/Southern Company, Pepco Holdings, Inc. (PHI), Univ. of Pittsburgh Medical Center, U.S. Xpress, PSEG, Mayo Clinic, University of Rochester, Pinellas County, CEO Roundtable on Cancer, City of Clearwater, C-Change, Manatee County...and more. Satisfaction guaranteed...or your registration refunded. Best Value in Health Benefits Continuing Education (HBCE) - highest quality and registration only $295 - $345. SHRM credits. www.HBCE.com


Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General

[Official Guidance]
Text of Guidance on Executive Compensation Requirements for Participants in Capital Purchase Program under Troubled Asset Relief Program (PDF)

18 pages. Excerpt: "SUMMARY: This interim final rule . . . provides further guidance on the executive compensation provisions applicable to participants in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) Capital Purchase Program (CPP). The Department of the Treasury published an interim final rule in 31 CFR Part 30 on October 20, 2008 (October Interim Final Rule) providing guidance on section 111(b) of EESA, which requires financial institutions from which the Treasury is purchasing troubled assets through direct purchases to meet appropriate standards for executive compensation and corporate governance. This interim final rule provides one technical amendment and two clarifications to the October Interim Final Rule and provides reporting and recordkeeping requirements regarding the executive compensation requirements in the October Interim Final Rule and this interim final rule." (American Benefits Council)


[Guidance Overview]
IRS's Interim Guidance on Taxation of Deferred Compensation Maintained by Certain Partnerships and Foreign Corporations (PDF)

6 pages. Excerpt: "This month, the IRS issued Notice 2009-8 as interim guidance on Section 457A of the Internal Revenue Code ('457A'), which imposes immediate taxation, and in certain circumstances a 20-percent penalty plus interest, on deferred compensation arrangements maintained by certain partnerships and foreign corporations. The interim guidance basically elaborates on 457A's statutory scheme, in much the same manner as IRS Notice 2005-1 established guidelines for interpreting Code Section 409A ('409A') after its enactment. Taxpayers may rely on the interim 457A guidance until the IRS issues further guidance, with the IRS promising not to expand 457A's scope other than prospectively after future guidance." (Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP)


[Guidance Overview]
EBSA Guidance on Filing of Registration Statement for Controlled Groups by Administrator of Top-Hat Plan

Excerpt: "EBSA has clarified that a plan covering a 'controlled group of corporations' or a 'group of trades or businesses under common control' can file a single registration statement, satisfying the alternative method of compliance, for participating employers." (Wolters Kluwer)


Google Offers Workers Cheaper Stock Options
Excerpt: "Google Inc. is allowing its employees to swap their stock options for new ones that will give them a better chance to profit from their holdings. The Mountain View-based company outlined the exchange program Thursday in its fourth-quarter earnings report. . . . Google will have to absorb another hit to earnings to pay for the new options being made available to its 20,222 employees. Management expects the accounting charge to be about $460 million, assuming the new exercise price for the options is around $300." (AP via The Washington Post; free registration required)


Experts Call on Congress To Address Entitlement Program Spending and Economy Simultaneously
Excerpt: "Lawmakers should consider legislation to reduce spending on Medicare and other entitlement programs as they consider bills to address the current economic recession, experts said on Wednesday during a Senate Budget Committee hearing, CQ HealthBeat reports. During the hearing, Alice Rivlin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and the White House Office of Management and Budget, said that lawmakers should act 'on two fronts at once, including a strong anti-recession package and immediate steps to reduce the contributions to future deficits of Social Security and Medicare.'" (Kaiser Family Foundation)




Newly Posted Events

Top Ten COBRA Mistakes: How to Identify, Correct, and Prevent the Big Problems
Nationwide on January 15, 2009
presented by EBIA / Thomson Reuters

Workshop with Sal Tripodi
in California on February 19, 2009
presented by National Institute of Pension Administrators - San Francisco Bay Area Chapter



Newly Posted Press Releases

ERIC Urges Congress and Obama Administration to Approve Meaningful Pension Funding Relief
ERIC (ERISA Industry Committee)

ERIC Urges Congress Not to Extend COBRA Health Coverage Beyond Original Legislative Intent
ERIC (ERISA Industry Committee)

DALBAR Adviser Audit Upgraded for New IRA and 401k Regulation
Dalbar, Inc.

OFG Update: Transparency Regulation Postponed
OneFiduciary Group, LLC



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