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BenefitsLink Health & Welfare Plans Newsletter
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[Guidance Overview]
Benefits and Coverage Summaries Begin September 23
"'Consumers, for the first time, will really be able to clearly comprehend the sometimes confusing language insurance plans often use in marketing,' said Kathleen Sebelius, HHS Secretary. 'This will give them a new edge in deciding which plan will best suit their needs and those of their families or employees.'"
(Wolters Kluwer Law & Business / CCH)
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Obama Modifies Birth Control Mandate
"Obama announced that the rule would be tweaked, so in cases where non-profit religious organizations have objections, their insurance companies will be required to reach out to employees and offer the coverage directly."
(USA TODAY)
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White House Compromise Still Guarantees Contraceptive Coverage for Women
"The compromise goes beyond similar accommodations in Hawaii and several other states, because in those states, insurers can charge an extra premium for the contraceptive coverage. Administration officials did not explain why the compromise was not incorporated earlier, despite the fact that it had been widely discussed as early as last fall."
(The Washington Post; free registration required)
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Amid Catholic Contraception Coverage Anger, Obama Compromises
"Under the new plan put forward by the White House health insurance companies, rather than the employer, will be required to offer contraception directly to employees of religious-linked institutions if requested. The institutions — such as universities or hospitals — would not be required to subsidize the cost of offering birth control to their employees, nor would they be asked to refer them to organizations that provide it."
(BBC News)
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UnitedHealth Will Tie Doctors' Payments to Quality of Care
"UnitedHealth expects to save twice as much as it would spend on incentive payments for doctors because patients will be healthier . . . . The program may cover as much as 70 percent of the insurer's commercial members by 2015, from less than 2 percent now, the company said."
(Bloomberg BusinessWeek)
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Rules Requiring Contraceptive Coverage Have Been in Force for Years
"There's been no let-up in the debate about the Obama administration's rule requiring most employers to provide prescription birth control to their workers without additional cost. Here's the rub: The only truly novel part of the plan is the 'no cost' bit."
(National Public Radio)
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[Opinion]
AHIP's Statement on Summary of Benefits and Coverage
"The final rule requires an almost complete overhaul and redesign of how information must be provided to consumers. . . . Requiring a separate document for each coverage scenario will significantly increase administrative costs and potentially result in consumers having to sort through scores of pages of coverage information." (AHIP
(America's Health Insurance Plans))
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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The ERISA Litigation Newsletter, February 2012
Covers 'the Fourth Circuit's decision . . . [which] held that ERISA's duties of prudence and diversification require more than a showing of a failure to investigate or diversify to equate to causation of loss and therefore liability . . . several court decisions . . . which suggest that, in some jurisdictions, courts have seemingly abandoned the policy and purpose behind the exhaustion doctrine's creation: namely, to keep the courts from acting as surrogate plan administrators."
(Proskauer Rose LLP)
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[Opinion]
Do Public School Teachers Really Receive Lavish Benefits?
"According to Richwine and Biggs, this makes teachers' total compensation 52 percent higher than fair-market levels and amounts to $120 bil.lion 'overcharged' to taxpayers each year. This finding, and previous research by the same authors . . . are at odds with a large body of research showing that public school teachers and other government workers have total compensation that is lower -- or at least no higher -- than that of comparable private-sector workers . . . ."
(Economic Policy Institute)
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Press Releases
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