[Guidance Overview]
New Health Care Reform Definition of Dependent Child Creates Tax Issues
"Specifically, one issue relates to the fact that new federal tax rules for dependent coverage do not apply to health savings accounts (HSAs); another arises because some state tax laws do not follow the new federal rules."
(Miller, Johnson, Snell & Cummiskey, P.L.C.)
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Health Reform: A Four-Tranche System, Updated and Revised
"This package of tables considers interactions between four different provisions of government support for health care that exist under the new Health Reform law . . .: Medicare, Medicaid, Insurance Subsidies offered through the Exchange, and Employer Sponsored Insurance . . . ."
(Urban Institute)
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Advancing Health Care Service Quality Through Employer-Led Initiatives
"Employers are increasingly engaged in a range of innovative approaches to improving health care quality and controlling costs that directly address some of the underlying flaws in the health care system, including: pay-for-volume approaches to compensation; the failure to engage patients in their own care; barriers to accessing care; a lack of coordination among providers; and counterproductive benefit designs."
(The Commonwealth Fund)
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California Tax Conformity with PPACA Extended to Employment Taxes
"An amendment to California Assembly Bill 36, which would bring California income taxes into conformity with post-PPACA federal tax law regarding coverage extended to dependents up to age 26, would extend the conformity to employment taxes, specifically state disability . . . and unemployment insurance."
(E Is for ERISA)
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Health Insurance Subsidy Reverts to 65%
"A 2002 law created the subsidy, known as the Health Coverage Tax Credit, and set the tax credit at 65%. In 2009, a stimulus law raised the tax credit to 80% through Dec. 31, 2010, and Congress late last year approved a stopgap extension through Feb. 12, 2011."
(Business Insurance)
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A Third Judge Validates Health Care Overhaul Law
"The judge suggested in her 64-page opinion that not buying insurance was an active choice that had clear effects on the marketplace by burdening other payers with the cost of uncompensated medical care."
(The New York Times; free registration required)
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Many Medical Bills Contain Errors: Here's What You Need to Know
"Not only can billing errors lead to higher costs for consumers -- they can also sabotage otherwise well-heeled borrowers' ability to get mortgages or other types of loans. Medical-billing errors mar the credit reports of roughly 14 mil.lion Americans, according to a [recent study]."
(The Wall Street Journal)
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A Health Insurance Insider Offers Words of Advice
"Now a senior analyst at the Center for Public Integrity, [Wendell] Potter has written 'Deadly Spin,' a tell-all about practices of the health insurance industry. The book chronicles insurers' attempts to influence legislators, policy makers and the public, as well as his own change of heart about his work."
(The New York Times; free registration required)
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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[Guidance Overview]
Dodd-Frank Act Say-on-Pay: The SEC's Final Rules
"Because of the limited ability to avoid the separate say-on-parachutes vote by providing the Item 402(t) disclosure in a proxy statement that provides a say-on-pay vote, not many companies are expected to include the golden parachute compensation disclosure in annual meeting proxy statements."
(The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. via Ballard Spahr LLP)
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Press Releases
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