To EmployeeBenefitsJobs.com To BenefitsLink home page

BenefitsLink Health & Welfare Plans Newsletter

October 21, 2011 Get Retirement News  |  Advertise  |  Unsubscribe  |  Past Issues  |  Search

Employee Benefits Jobs

Relius Daily Trading Record keeper
for Billings and Company, Inc. in ANY STATE

Enrolled Actuary
for Alliance Pension Consultants, LLC in IL

Compliance Specialist
for ERISA Pros, LLC in GA

Pension Administrator
for Jack A. Cross & Associates, Inc. in CA

Relationship Manager
for New York Life Retirement Plan Services in MA

Product Marketing Manager
for New York Life Retirement Plan Services in MA

Manager, Strategic Database Administration & Training
for Prudential in CT

Employee Benefits Attorney
for Harter Secrest & Emery LLP in NY

Post Your Job on EmployeeBenefitsJobs.com

View All Jobs

RSS feed for jobs RSS Feed: All Jobs


Webcasts and Conferences

"Advanced Plan Design Workshop 2011" - A 3-part Web Seminar
Nationwide on November 14, 2011 presented by SunGard Relius

"Pre-approved Plans: What You Can and Cannot Do" Web Seminar
Nationwide on November 7, 2011 presented by SunGard Relius

"The Service Provider Fee Regs - Who, What, Why, and When" Web Seminar - Encore Presentation
Nationwide on November 22, 2011 presented by SunGard Relius


We also publish the BenefitsLink Retirement Plans Newsletter (free): Subscribe

[Guidance Overview]
Employers Should Start Preparing to Report Cost of Employer-Sponsored Group Health Coverage
"To comply with this new requirement, employers should start gearing up to make sure systems are in place to track employee coverage and coordinate with their finance, payroll and human resources staff and vendors to ensure accurate reporting." (Snell & Wilmer L.L.P.)


DATAIR’s FlexPlus System – Makes Administration Profitable   [Advert.]

Sponsored by DATAIR Employee Benefit Systems, Inc.

Proposals, Testing, Claims Processing, Debit Cards and more!
Plus CafeDocs/SPDs and 5500s/SARs
(888) 328-2474 Sales@DATAIR.com www.DATAIR.com


Results from the National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance, 2011 (PDF)
"[This report] updates a series of comprehensive assessments of U.S. population health and health care quality, access, efficiency, and equity. It finds substantial improvement on quality-of-care indicators that have been the focus of public reporting and collaborative initiatives." (The Commonwealth Fund)

Wal-Mart Cuts Some Health Care Benefits
"Citing rising costs, Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, told its employees this week that all future part-time employees who work less than 24 hours a week on average will no longer qualify for any of the company's health insurance plans." (The New York Times; free registration required)

Unforeseen Legal Issues for On-Site Health Clinics
"This is especially true in the context of laws governing employee benefit plans. Employers and consultants who are unaware of the potential applicability of these laws to on-site clinics run the risk of creating unnecessary liability." (Spencer Fane Britt & Browne LLP)

Tracking Health Insurance Coverage by Month: Trends in Employment-Based Coverage (PDF)
Article starts on page 14. "In 2010, 58.7 percent of nonelderly individuals (under age 65) were covered by an employment-based health benefits plan, with 68.6 percent of workers covered, 35.3 percent of nonworking adults covered, and 54.8 percent of children covered . . . ." (Employee Benefit Research Institute)

State-by-State Medical Loss Ratio Adjustments, 2011
"The law allows the Secretary to adjust the MLR standard for a state if it is determined that meeting the 80% Medical Loss Ratio standard may destabilize the individual market. In order to qualify for this adjustment, a state must demonstrate that requiring insurers in its individual market to meet the 80% MLR has a likelihood of destabilizing the individual market and result in fewer choices for consumers." (The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation)

Calculate Your Retirement Health Costs with HealthView's Calculator
"[After entering specific medical traits and health habits, i]nput a few other key data, such as age and se.x, to generate a 7-page Personal Health Care Expense Report that includes nifty — and scary — charts showing that medical costs will rise as the retiree ages." (Trustees of Boston College, Center for Retirement Research)

HHS Releases Final Regulations for ACOs
"The Obama administration on Thursday bowed to health industry concerns about its plans for Medicare accountable care organizations, making it easier for doctors and hospitals to participate in the program designed to lower medical costs." (The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation)

[Opinion]
Four Ways to Fix Long-Term Care
"'If you got bunch of real long-term care wonks in a room, we could figure something out,' says Duke University's Donald Taylor, a health care economist. I spent most of yesterday talking to those wonks, and here are four solutions they came up with . . . ." (The Washington Post; free registration required)

Benefits in General; Executive Compensation

Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. Draft 2012 Policy Changes (PDF)
"On October 18, ISS issued draft policy changes for the 2012 proxy season for public comment. Four changes to its U.S. executive compensation policies were proposed, one of which affects ISS' evaluation of pay-for-performance alignment and will have significant implications for public corporations." (Frederic W. Cook & Co., Inc.)

IRS Announces Key Benefit Plan Limits for 2012 (PDF)
"The IRS has issued . . . the retirement plan limits for 2012, and [the] 2012 limits for qualified transportation fringe benefits, adoption assistance programs, long-term care products, and medical savings accounts." (Buck Consultants, LLC)

2011 Private Company Equity Compensation Survey Results
There are many equity compensation surveys for public companies, but almost none for closely held companies, and these focus just on executive equity in single industries or pre-IPO companies. The NCEO Private Company Equity Survey fills this gap. It is based on 201 completed surveys from private companies with equity plans and 32 responses from service providers in a separate survey designed to corroborate the broader survey results. (National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO))

Press Releases



BenefitsLink.com, Inc.
1298 Minnesota Avenue, Suite H
Winter Park, Florida 32789
Phone (407) 644-4146
Fax (407) 644-2151

Jeanette Hull, News Editor
David Rhett Baker, J.D., Editor and Publisher
Lois Baker, J.D., President
Holly Horton, Business Manager

Copyright © 2011 BenefitsLink.com, Inc. All rights reserved.

All materials contained in this newsletter are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of BenefitsLink.com, Inc., or in the case of third party materials, the owner of that content. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.

Links to Web sites other than those owned by BenefitsLink.com, Inc. are offered as a service to readers. The editorial staff of BenefitsLink.com, Inc. was not involved in their production and is not responsible for their content.

More useful links: