Health & Welfare Plans Newsletter |
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| November 9, 2009 \ Compliance \ Costs \ Administration \ Design \ Policy | ||
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[Guidance Overview]
Mental Health Parity: What Employers Need to Know
Excerpt: "After more than a decade of discussion, Congress has finally enacted legislation mandating full parity for mental health and substance abuse benefits. The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) became law on Oct. 3, 2008, as part of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. The law, which generally becomes effective in 2010, affects insured and self-insured group health plans provided by employers. Under MHPAEA, employer group health plans may not impose steeper financial requirements or stricter treatment limitations on mental health and substance abuse benefits than on medical and surgical benefits. The act does not require employers to provide mental health/substance abuse benefits. Rather, if employers provide them, the benefits must be equivalent to medical and surgical benefits. If a plan offers two or more benefit packages, the MHPAEA applies separately to each." (Watson Wyatt Worldwide)
Sweeping Health Care Plan Passes House
Excerpt: "Handing President Obama a hard-fought victory, the House narrowly approved a sweeping overhaul of the nation's health care system on Saturday night, advancing legislation that Democrats said could stand as their defining social policy achievement. After a daylong clash with Republicans over what has been a Democratic goal for decades, lawmakers voted 220 to 215 to approve a plan that would cost $1.1 trillion over 10 years. Democrats said the legislation would provide overdue relief to Americans struggling to buy or hold on to health insurance." (The New York Times; free registration required)
Federal Employees Have Fewer Health Insurance Choices This Year
Excerpt: "The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program typically includes an array of health insurance options. But this year the choices are more limited than before because 32 health insurance plans are leaving FEHBP or reducing their coverage across the country. 'It's kind of a disturbing trend,' said Dave Snell, retirement benefits service department director for the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association. 'It cuts down on choices, for one, and the federal program is all about choice.'" (GovernmentExecutive.com)
IBM to Pay for Workers' Primary Care
Excerpt: "At a time when many employers are asking employees to shoulder a greater share of the health care cost burden, IBM Corp. is taking the opposite approach: It will pay 100% of the cost of primary care for its employees beginning in 2010. Long considered one of the more innovative employers when it comes to its health care benefit programs, IBM's latest initiative is part of the company's ongoing advocacy of wellness among its employees, according to Marianne Defazio, director of health benefits design and strategy. The Armonk, N.Y.-based technology firm introduced cash rebates in 2004 for participation in wellness activities and has been covering preventive care at 100% since 2006, she said." (Business Insurance)
Behavioral Economics Plays a Big Role in the Success of Wellness Programs
Excerpt: "'People are constantly making trade-offs between immediate gratification and delayed benefits,' says Kevin Volpp, Associate Professor of Medicine and Health Care Management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Employers could get better results in their wellness programs if they focused more on the immediate gratification, say Volpp and a team of academics currently researching the role of behavioral economics in these programs. Volpp and Wharton School Professor of Health Care Management Mark Pauly call this approach 'P4P4P': pay for performance for patients. Too often, they say, employers' wellness programs have had major incentive-related design flaws that hampered results. 'I am here to say, T-shirts do not work,' Pauly says. Rather, people's psychological motivations should become a key part of wellness-program design . . . ." (PLANSPONSOR.com; free registration required)
Evidence-Based Medicine Practiced at Intermountain Hospital Could Be Cure for American Health Care
Excerpt: "The health care debate of 2009 has had so many moving parts that it has sometimes seemed impossible to follow. The crisis behind the debate, though, is about one thing above all: the scattershot nature of American medicine. The fee-for-service payment system -- combined with our own instincts as patients -- encourages ever more testing and treatments. We're not sure which ones make a difference, but we keep on getting them, and costs keep rising. Millions of people cannot afford insurance as a result. Millions more have had their incomes pinched by rising insurance premiums. Medicare is on a long-term path to insolvency. The American health care system is vastly more expensive than any other country's, but our results are not vastly better. Any bill that Congress passes this year is unlikely to fix these problems." (The New York Times; free registration required)
[Opinion]
House Health Bill's High-Income Surcharge is Sound and Well Targeted
Excerpt: "A 5.4 percent surcharge on couples with incomes over $1 million, a key financing feature of the House health reform bill, is sound and well targeted. It would affect just a fraction of 1 percent of taxpayers, a group whose incomes have soared and tax burdens have fallen in recent years, and would have only a modest impact on small businesses." (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)
BenefitsLink Newsletter (Advert.)
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Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
To Retain Its Bankers, Citigroup Offers Stock Option PlanExcerpt: "Hoping to encourage bankers and managers to stay, Citigroup began dispensing several million stock options this week to more than a quarter of its workers in a way that could result in a sizable gain for them. . . . As an extra incentive to stay and help with the turnaround, Citigroup said it would grant one stock option at just above the current market price for each unvested share employees had accumulated. If the share price rebounds, as it has at Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup employees could see a sharp increase in their 2009 compensation." (The New York Times; free registration required)
Specific Corporate Compliance Challenges by Practice Area: ERISA
Excerpt: "[The chapter] provides a general overview of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ('ERISA') and discusses best practices for fiduciary compliance, ERISA litigation and risk management, and ERISA reporting and disclosure requirements." (Corporate Compliance Practice Guide: The Next Generation via Seyfarth Shaw LLP)
How to Drive Value for Your Benefits Package with the Enrollment Experience
28 pages. Excerpt: "This white paper discusses how to reinvent the enrollment experience to benefit both employers and employees -- while increasing a company's return on its benefits investment. Employers will learn how this paradigm shift is driving the need for more comprehensive benefits education and what measures they can take to help employees better understand and appreciate their benefits choices. Readers will learn the importance of planning and reporting before, during and after the actual enrollment. The paper also illustrates why an effectively communicated benefits package can make a big difference in how employees perceive their company and how they may perform -- no matter if the company has a few employees or a few thousand." (Colonial Life)
After 40 Years, Age Discrimination Still Gets Second-Class Treatment
Excerpt: "Age discrimination is illegal. But when compared with discrimination against racial minorities and women, it is a second-class civil rights issue. The Supreme Court drove its inferiority home again in June of this year, ruling that older workers must show that age was the decisive factor in their firing -- not merely a contributing factor, which can be enough for a race or sex claim. Congress is considering overturning the ruling. It should do so. It is particularly important in the current downturn, with age discrimination complaints soaring. But the problem is larger than any one legal standard." (The New York Times; free registration required)
Press Releases
Council Letter to House: Health Care Reform Bill Fails to Control Costs, Weakens Employer-sponsored CoverageAmerican Benefits Council
401ktest.com Reduces Their Annual Subscription Cost by 63%!
401kTest.com
Author Calls on Rep. Robert Andrews to Hold Hearings on 401(k) Crisis, Demanding that the Mutual Fund Industry Explain Its Lack of Insight
Retirement Solutions LLC
(Click to post your press release)
Employee Benefits Jobs
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Retirement Plan Administrator
for SuperiorUSA
in MN
Enrollments Administrator
for Public Agency Retirement Services
in CA
Sr. Retirement Benefits Analyst (SF)(Job ID: 21219)
for Morrison & Foerster LLP
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Senior Consultant
for Strategies LLC
in CO
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