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March 14, 2012 Get Retirement News  |  Advertise  |  Unsubscribe  |  Past Issues  |  Search

Employee Benefits Jobs

Financial Services Operations Division Manager
for Nationwide Insurance in OH

Defined Contribution - Client Service Associate
for Milliman in CO

Litigation Attorney
for Slevin & Hart, P.C. in DC

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Webcasts and Conferences

Form 5500 for Health and Welfare Plans: Preparation and Filing Basics
Nationwide on April 12, 2012 presented by Thomson Reuters / EBIA

Health Care Reform
in Minnesota on May 11, 2012 presented by Thomson Reuters / EBIA

COBRA Compliance for Group Health Plans
in Minnesota on May 10, 2012 presented by Thomson Reuters / EBIA

HIPAA Privacy & Security
in Minnesota on May 10, 2012 presented by Thomson Reuters / EBIA

HSAs, HRAs, and Consumer-Driven Health Care
in Minnesota on May 9, 2012 presented by Thomson Reuters / EBIA

ERISA Compliance for Health & Welfare Plans
in Minnesota on May 9, 2012 presented by Thomson Reuters / EBIA

Cafeteria Plans
in Minnesota on May 8, 2012 presented by Thomson Reuters / EBIA

Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program Workshop
in Washington on March 27, 2012 presented by U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)


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[Guidance Overview]
IRS Encourages Small Employers to Check Out Small Business Health Care Tax Credit
"The recently-revamped Small Business Health Care Tax Credit page on IRS.gov is packed with information and resources designed to help small employers see if they qualify for the credit and then figure it correctly. These include a step-by-step guide for determining eligibility, examples of typical tax savings under various scenarios, answers to frequently-asked questions, a YouTube video and a webinar." (Internal Revenue Service)


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[Guidance Overview]
Summaries of Health Benefits and Coverage Due This Fall
"Plan sponsors should quickly determine who will create the required SBC(s) for their plans and when and how they will be delivered. Plans that have carved out certain benefits, such as prescription drug coverage, may face additional challenges in drafting an SBC that incorporates information from different vendors." (Morgan Lewis)

Commuting by Public Transit on the Rise
"Employees who take public transportation to work may benefit from a tax break, but only if their employer sponsors a qualified transportation fringe benefit ... plan under Code Section 132." (Thompson)

Do Small-Group Health Insurance Regulations Influence Small Business Size?
"[RAND examined] the relationship between [state-level] small-group reform and firm size and find evidence that small firms just below the regulatory threshold that were offering health insurance grew in order to bypass reforms." (RAND)

Insurer, Office of Civil Rights Reach $1.5M Settlement for HIPAA Breach
"The HIPAA privacy and security enforcer settled Tuesday, March 13, with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee ... for $1.5 mil.lion for its 2009 HIPAA breach that affected more than 1 mil.lion individuals[.]" (HealthLeaders Media)

Results from a Scorecard on Local Health Performance, 2012
"The first-ever Scorecard on Local Health System Performance provides U.S. communities with comparative data to assess the performance of their health care systems, establish priorities for improvement, and set achievement targets. It tracks 43 indicators spanning four dimensions of health system performance: access, prevention and treatment, costs and potentially avoidable hospital use, and health outcomes." (The Commonwealth Fund)

Health Exchanges Will Need to Notify Employers about Employees Eligible for Subsidies
"Among other things, exchanges will have to provide a notice to employers that identifies by name the employees who have applied for and have been determined by exchange administrators as eligible for premium subsidies." (Business Insurance; free registration required)

Resources from the Massachusetts Implementation Experience
"Because Massachusetts' 2006 health reform law established an insurance exchange in that state, many states around the nation are turning to Massachusetts officials for lessons about establishing an exchange.... The [Health Reform Toolkits] are designed to share experiences, materials, templates and lessons learned from the state's planning and creation of its exchange with other states as they begin ACA implementation." (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)

State Considerations on Adopting Health Reform's "Basic Health" Option (PDF)
"Basic Health allows states to offer coverage that could be more affordable and comprehensive than the coverage available through the exchange. That, in turn, could help boost enrollment, retention, and access to care among those eligible for Basic Health. On the other hand, if a state's Basic Health program is not well-designed or not appropriate for the state given its specific circumstances, it could lead to a fragmented system with gaps in coverage and disruptions in care for people who move from one program to another as their incomes rise or fall." (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

Updated Estimates for the Insurance Coverage Provisions of the Affordable Care Act
""[The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation] now estimate that the insurance coverage provisions of the [Affordable Care Act] will have a net cost of just under $1.1 tril.lion over the 2012–2021 period — about $50 bil.lion less than the agencies' March 2011 estimate for that 10-year period[.]" (Congressional Budget Office)

IRS Regulatory Agenda Reflects Focus on Group Health Plans
This article includes a list of regulations scheduled for completion by June 2012. More information on the IRS regulatory agenda is available on the Regulations.gov website. (Deloitte)

[Opinion]
U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Benefits Council Amicus Brief to Supreme Court in Sterling Chemicals, Inc. v. Evans: Corporate Purchase Agreement Should Not Constitute ERISA Plan Amendment (PDF)
"The misguided decision below, which allows employee benefit plans to have been amended unknowingly and unintentionally by corporate purchase agreements that were neither identified nor intended as plan amendments, profoundly and adversely affects amici's members by throwing the terms of their plans into doubt, introducing the prospect of enormous unanticipated liabilities, and opening the door to unnecessary, time consuming and expensive litigation over the operation of their plans for many prior years. We believe this Court's review is urgently needed." (American Benefits Council)

Benefits in General; Executive Compensation

[Guidance Overview]
Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Update, Spring 2012
Articles include Health Care Reform: Compliance Under the New Rules on Summary of Benefits and Coverage; Service Provider Fee Disclosure Regulations; and Managing "Longevity Risk" under Proposed Guidance. (Greensfelder)

Controlled and Affiliated Service Group Rules for Retirement and Cafeteria Plans
"Compliance with the various rules for qualified plans is difficult even for companies that are not part of a controlled group. It becomes even more difficult when operating multiple operations domestically. Adding foreign operations into the equation adds substantial additional complexity which companies need to recognize and address. The risk of noncompliance is too costly to ignore!" (EisnerAmper)

Privacy and Security Issues Affecting Employee Benefit Plans
"The Council recommended that [DOL]: (1) provide guidance on the obligation of plan fiduciaries to secure and keep private the personal identifiable information ... of participants and beneficiaries; (2) develop educational materials and outreach efforts for plan sponsors, participants, and beneficiaries to address the issues of privacy and security of PII; and (3) include in their outreach and educational materials information regarding elder abuse related to benefit plans." (ERISA Advisory Council)

Press Releases



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