Health & Welfare Plans Newsletter |
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| August 19, 2009 \ Compliance \ Costs \ Administration \ Design \ Policy | ||
University Conference Services (Advert.)
What’s Your Next Move? Managing your organization’s health and welfare plans can seem like a game of chess. You always want to be one move ahead of your "opponent"—cost increases that outpace inflation, employees who ignore the principles of good nutrition and healthy living, or regulators who impose ever more complicated rules. The Las Vegas Health and Welfare Plan Management for Mid-Sized Employers conference, September 13–16, is an unmatched educational opportunity to evaluate your health care programs and create a winning strategy for keeping costs under control. |
[Guidance Overview]
Group Health Plans: Compliance Items: Changes Required in 2009 or 2010 and Notice Requirements (PDF)
7 pages. Excerpt: "Several important changes in governing law and regulations during the past year require changes to group health plans in the upcoming open enrollment period. [The target page presents] a brief description of these major changes which require implementation in 2009 or 2010. Also included in this Bulletin is a listing of enrollment and annual notices that group health plans should consider during this open enrollment period." (Bryan Cave LLP)
[Guidance Overview]
Broad Medicare Secondary Payer Reporting Rules Mean Additional Data Collection
Excerpt: "The Medicare Secondary Payer program seeks to ensure that Medicare isn't the primary payer of medical claims for beneficiaries also covered by group health plans. Mandatory reporting to Medicare of most group health plan participants' information began this year. Although insurers and third-party administrators are mainly responsible for the reporting, employers may need to collect some information, such as dependent Social Security numbers, from health plan enrollees. This Update provides an overview of the requirements and information employers may need to collect." (Mercer LLC)
2010 Segal Health Plan Cost Trend Survey
Excerpt: "The 2010 Segal Health Plan Cost Trend Survey examines trend ranges, trends for active participants and retirees, trend components and the accuracy of trend projections by comparing projected trends for 2008 to actual trends for that year. The report also discusses strategies for managing health care costs and notes major marketplace issues for 2010 that plan sponsors may want to consider, including determining the impact of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 and preparing for the possibility of national health care reform." (The Segal Group, Inc.)
Swine Flu in the Workplace: An Update and Proactive Response
Excerpt: "Prudent employers can and should now be taking proactive steps to help protect their employees and prepare them for the potential impact of swine flu on the workplace. This is best done through implementation of a communicable illness response program that provides a structure for responding to the current swine flu outbreak as well as outbreaks of other communicable illnesses in the future." (Nixon Peabody LLP)
Employers' Response to Health Insurance Reform
Excerpt: "The HR Policy Association, a Washington-based organization representing senior HR executives from large U.S. employers, recently sent a letter to the president and Congress stating that the current healthcare proposals -- specifically the pay-or-play model -- could 'ultimately destroy the U.S. employer-based system.' The group also says that the proposal could create 'a strong disincentive' for companies to expand employment opportunities in the United States, since it will increase labor costs." (Human Resource Executive Online)
Hewitt Analysis Shows Average COBRA Enrollments Doubled Since Subsidy Became Available
Excerpt: "According to Hewitt's research, companies in the industrial manufacturing industry saw an 800 percent increase in COBRA enrollments since the subsidy was enacted. COBRA enrollments rose from 7 percent (September 2008 to February 2009) to 59 percent (March 2009 to June 2009). Enrollments for companies in the construction, leisure, and retail industries tripled." (Hewitt Associates)
State Health Care Reform Update as of August 19, 2009
Excerpt: "For the last few years, states have been leading the way toward more comprehensive health care coverage to ensure that more people have or can obtain health insurance. Because of the potential impact of this ongoing activity on employer-provided health insurance benefits, Spencer's Benefits Reports provides regular updates about state health care reform." (Wolters Kluwer)
Building a National Insurance Exchange: Lessons from California
Excerpt: "With the nation's lawmakers pursuing an ambitious timeline for overhauling the U.S. health care system, California's experience could shed light on how best to craft a crucial element of the leading legislative proposals. Virtually all of the bills now taking shape on Capitol Hill incorporate the idea of an insurance exchange where consumers can select a health plan from a range of offerings. Over the past 15 years, California gained extensive experience in designing and operating just such an exchange, an effort that ultimately proved unsustainable. This issue brief draws on interviews with eight individuals who played key roles in the California exchange." (California HealthCare Foundation)
CMS's HIPAA Security Review Summary Implies Encryption and Employee Background Checks May Be Required
Excerpt: "'The two themes that stand out to me in the CMS summary are the importance of well-developed policies and procedures and the obligation of ongoing compliance,' [Chris Bennington, an attorney in the Cincinnati-Dayton office of Bricker & Eckler LLP] tells RPP. 'Not surprisingly, many of the compliance issues highlighted by CMS focused on the covered entities' policies and procedures.'" (AISHealth.com)
Consumer Driven Health Plans Cover More Employees than HMOs, According to Survey Results
Excerpt: "Consumer Driven Health Plans (CDHPs) in the U.S. have surpassed HMO plans in covered employees, according to preliminary results released by United Benefit Advisors (UBA) from its 2009 UBA Health Plan Survey, a plan benchmarking poll with 17,655 plans from 12,316 employers reporting. According to a press release, CDHPs grew at a rate of 33.9% this past year and now cover more employees (15.4%) than HMO plans (13.6%)." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Announcement of Medicare Part D Premium Amounts for 2010
Excerpt: "The national average Part D premium for Medicare prescription drug coverage will reach $31.94 in 2010, up from $30.36 per month in 2009, CMS estimates. Employers applying for the retiree drug subsidy use this figure when determining the actuarial equivalence of their benefits. Part D beneficiaries will pay an average monthly premium of $30 in 2010, up from $28 in 2009. Other 2009 Part D figures released by CMS supply national average monthly bid amounts for stand-alone and Medicare Advantage (MA) plans offering prescription drug benefits, low-income subsidy amounts and MA benchmarks." (Mercer LLC)
Retirees' Health-Care Benefits at Risk, Study Warns
Excerpt: "A nearly two-decade trend that is stripping away employer-provided health-care benefits for retirees in private business will likely continue and could soon hit an even deeper pool of government retirees, new research by a University of Illinois elder law expert warns." (PhysOrg.com)
West Virginia Governor Seeks Compromise on Public Employee Retiree Health Care
Excerpt: "Gov. Joe Manchin is meeting with education leaders, unions and other groups to craft a bill addressing West Virginia's growing liability for subsidizing the health insurance premiums of public employees in retirement. The goal is to have a bill ready by Dec. 15, Manchin said Monday after the first meeting of a working group studying the future costs of other post-employment benefits, also known as the OPEB debt. But first members of the working group must agree on the facts and figures used to determine the debt, estimated by the Public Employees Insurance Agency at about $7 billion." (Charleston Daily Mail)
[Opinion]
Why Health Reform Must Counter the Rising Costs of Health Insurance Premiums
Excerpt: "Health insurance is already becoming unaffordable for families and businesses, with premium inflation outpacing wage increases. Between 1999 and 2008, employer family health insurance premiums rose by 119 percent, while the median family income rose by less than 30 percent. As a result, average family premiums for group policies have risen from 11 percent to 18 percent of median family income. And if Congress fails to pass health reforms that control health care costs, premiums are projected to rise to 24 percent of a family's income by 2020. (Click on image at right to open chart.) In any economic climate, but especially in today's recession, most families cannot afford to devote a fourth of their income to insurance coverage, nor can businesses afford their share of insurance premiums in addition to raises for employees." (Karen Davis via The Commonwealth Fund)
[Opinion]
Health Insurance Reform: Large Group, Small Group, and Individual Health Insurance
Excerpt: "[I]n the case of the majority of Americans, the needed insurance reform is to ensure that they can keep their insurance in the case of job loss or a change in employer. Their health insurance needs to be portable. Reform should delink insurance and employment. But if insurance is not linked to employment, who will pay for it? And what happens to the ERISA exemption from expensive state mandated benefits? And most important, how will individuals be protected from preexisting conditions limitations and the threat or recession? In fact, if insurance is delinked from employment, won't we be giving up all that is favorable in the current insurance of the majority of Americans? Let's explore the issues by taking a look at individual insurance." (The League of Ordinary Gentlemen)
BenefitsLink Newsletter (Advert.)
We Have Your Target Audience Have you considered advertising your company's products or services right here in the BenefitsLink newsletter? Our subscribers care about employee benefit plan compliance, administration, costs and design. Roles include in-house benefits directors and administrators, TPAs, consultants, attorneys, trust officers, auditors and investment managers. Your ad will show both your banner and a paragraph of text -- more exposure than you'll find anywhere else. And, of course, a clickable link to any page on your web site. Contact Mary Hall for details. |
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
Stock Option Backdating Likely More Widespread, According to StudyExcerpt: "The majority of companies that improperly backdated stock options never were caught by regulators or confessed to the practice, according to a new academic study. Researchers at the University of Houston's C.T. Bauer College of Business used a sophisticated statistical test to sift through more than 4,000 publicly traded companies for those with patterns of granting options at abnormally favorable times, often at low points for their share prices. The study identified 141 companies with such advantageous options-granting practices that the researchers concluded they were highly likely to have been involved in backdating. Ninety-two of those companies never were publicly linked to investigations or announced earnings restatements related to backdating." (The Wall Street Journal)
House Passes Corporate and Financial Institution Compensation Fairness Act of 2009; Update on Other Pending Executive Compensation Legislation (PDF)
7 pages. Excerpt: "With Congress in adjournment until September, it is timely to review the status of pending legislation that would affect executive compensation practices. In addition to the executive compensation legislation passed in February that affects financial institutions receiving TARP financial assistance, many other bills have been introduced in this Congress that, if passed, will significantly change the executive compensation landscape. The House's passage of H.R. 3269 on July 31 reinforces the commonly held view that additional executive compensation legislation is likely before the end of 2009." (Frederic W. Cook & Co., Inc.)
Pay and Benefits Edge of Michigan Public Employees Disputed
Excerpt: "State employees earning more pay and benefits than their private sector counterparts is folklore, a Michigan State University economist says. A study by Charles Ballard looked at the changes state employees have seen in their level of employment, benefits, work hours and compensation from 2001-08 and concluded state workers earn less money and pay more for benefits than nongovernment employees. The study is at odds with figures cited in House Speaker Andy Dillon's recent proposal to combine state workers' health benefits with those of teachers and municipal workers. A House Fiscal Agency analysis cited by Dillon found state employees contribute less to their health care than those in the private sector." (The Detroit News)
Webcasts and Conferences
Health Care Reform: What It Means for Employers and Employees. Session Two: What Changes Occurred After the Recess?Nationwide on September 15, 2009
presented by Buck Consultants, an ACS Company
(Click to post your webcast or conference)
Press Releases
Hewitt Analysis Shows Average COBRA Enrollments Doubled Since Subsidy Became Available in February 2009Hewitt Associates LLC
Something's Gotta Give. And For Best Companies, It's Not Employee Benefits
Principal Financial Group
Consumer Driven Health Plans Surpass HMOs in Popularity With Employees
United Benefit Advisors
New York Life Center For Retirement Income At The American College Launches Website
New York Life Insurance Company
USAA Survey Finds Baby Boomers Keeping With Tradition With Few Roth IRA Conversions Planned in 2010
USAA
(Click to post your press release)
Employee Benefits Jobs
401(k) Client Relationship Managerfor CPS, Inc.
in IA, IL, IN, MI, MN, OH, WI
Client Relationship Manager - Minneapolis or Iowa
for Transamerica Retirement Services
in IA, MN
Defined Benefit Plan Administrator
for The Senex Group
in CA
Annuities Learning Technical Writer
for Prudential Financial
in CT
Vice President, Learning
for Prudential Financial
in CT
(Click to post your job opening | View all jobs |
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