Sr Consultant, Corporate Compliance
for Nationwide Insurance in OH

Enrolled Actuary
for Third Party Administration Firm in CA

Retiree Specialist
for Northwestern Benefit Corporation of Georgia in GA

Manager, Consulting Support Services
for Northwestern Benefit Corporation of Georgia in GA

401(k) Administrator/Accountant
for Stoel Rives LLP in OR

Account Manager-Employee Benefit Plans
for RBD, LLC - DailyAccess Corporation in KS

Defined Contribution Administrator
for FACTS, inc. in IN

Director of Operations
for The Pension Group, Inc., a United Retirement Plan Consultants Company in CA

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Beyond FSAs: A Primer on Other Reimbursement Accounts and Tax-Preferred Benefits
Nationwide on July 19, 2012 presented by TRI-AD

Best Practices for Evaluating Retirement Plan Fees and Complying with New DOL Fee Disclosure Rules
Nationwide on June 5, 2012 presented by Hay Group and Covington & Burling LLP

401(k) Fee Disclosure and Investment Selection for Employers -- Are You Ready?
in New Jersey on June 27, 2012 presented by Wolff & Samson PC

Domestic Partner Benefits Seminar
Nationwide on May 24, 2012 presented by Faegre Baker Daniels LLP

IAS 19 - Changes and Implications for Defined Benefits Plans
Nationwide on June 14, 2012 presented by Mercer

Final IRS Regs Issued on Health Insur.ance Premium Tax Credits
"The IRS issued final regulations governing the Sec. 36B health insur.ance premium tax credit enacted by 2010's health care legislation.... The final regulations provide guidance to individuals who enroll in qualified health plans through Affordable Insur.ance Exchanges and claim the premium tax credit, and to Exchanges that make qualified health plans available to individuals and employers." (Journal of Accountancy)

New! Plan Document Software Module   [Advert.]

Wolters Kluwer Law & Business - ftwilliam.com has implemented lots of feedback and our own innovative ideas into a newly designed plan document software module. Join our webinar on June 20th for a sneak peek at our enhancements and what’s coming.

Catholic Institutions Initiate Multiple Lawsuits Challenging Contraceptive Coverage Mandate
"In a message announcing the filing, Notre Dame President Father John Jenkins said the lawsuit was not about 'preventing women from having access to contraception, nor even about preventing the Government from providing such services.' Rather, Jenkins said, the lawsuit was intended to stop the federal government from imposing 'its values on the University when those values conflict with our religious teachings.'" (Bloomberg BNA)

A Long View on Health Care: Think Like An Investor When Considering Coverage of Preventive Care
"Could health care costs be reined in by improving access to preventive care? It's an idea that appeals to policy makers and many public health experts, but the evidence for it is surprisingly hard to pin down.... [There are] questions about which diseases can actually be prevented, how effective preventive measures might be, and what they would cost. We put some of these questions to Dana Goldman, director of the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at the University of Southern California and founding editor of the Forum for Health Economics and Policy." (The New York Times; free registration required)

Government Task Force Discourages Routine Testing for Prostate Cancer
"Officials at two large insurers said the companies are unlikely to cease coverage in the near future. Lori McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for WellPoint, said the company 'considers continued screening for prostate cancer as medically necessary for men between the ages of 50 and 75' but will continue to review the evidence. Tammy Arnold, a spokeswoman for Aetna, which considers PSA screening a medically necessary preventive service for men age 40 and older, said officials there will review their policies." (The Washington Post; free registration required)

Massachusetts Health Care Reform: Six Years Later (PDF)
"This brief examines Massachusetts' experience with coverage and access to care over the last six years, as well as the state's ongoing efforts to deal with persistent high health-care costs. The brief also compares Massachusetts health reform with the national reforms included in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) signed into law by President Obama in 2010." (Kaiser Family Foundation)

Chronic Condition Prevalence in the 50+ US Population (PDF)
"This Fact Sheet is based on analysis of data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component (2009), a nationally representative longitudinal survey of the civilian, non-institutional population of the US cosponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the National Center for Health Statistics." (AARP)

A Dire Sign of The Obesity Epidemic: Teen Diabetes Soaring
"Public health experts have been worrying for years that the obesity epidemic would lead to an epidemic of Type 2 diabetes among kids. Now, for the first time, researchers have direct evidence that those fears are coming true[.]' (National Public Radio)

Factors Contributing to Low Use and Complexity of the Small Employer Health Insur.ance Tax Credit
"One factor limiting the credit's use is that most very small employers, 83 percent by one estimate, do not offer health insur.ance. According to employer representatives, tax preparers, and insur.ance brokers that GAO met with, the credit was not large enough to incentivize employers to begin offering insur.ance." (U.S. Government Accountability Office)

ML Strategies Health Care Reform Update, May 21, 2012 (PDF)
Weekly update on developments in federal and state health care reform legislation and regulations. Includes summaries of recent regulatory activity by HHS, CCIIO, IRS and CMS. (Mintz Levin)

Employment-Based Health Coverage Rate Continues to Shrink (PDF)
"Between December 2007-August 2009, the percentage of workers with employment-based coverage in their own name fell from 60.4 percent to 55.9 percent, recovering to 56.5 percent by December 2009. However, by April 2011, the percentage of workers with employment-based coverage had slipped back to 55.8 percent.... Uninsured workers reporting that they were not offered employment-based health benefits totaled roughly 40 percent from the mid-1990s through 2003, reaching 23 percent in mid-2011." (EBRI)

Health Care Spending and Use Trends in 2010 in the Under 65 Population
"[W]hile spending went up relatively slowly [during 2010]—about 3.3 percent—the biggest factor was an increase in 'prices to providers.' In other words, people didn't get more care, but they and their insurers paid more for the care they got. That also showed up in the fact that individuals' out-of-pocket spending grew slightly." (NPR)

Tax Implications of Wellness Programs Often Overlooked by Employers
"A health plan that imposes a premium surcharge on employees who smoke is subject to ... nondiscrimination rules because the surcharge is based on a health factor. If the smoker-surcharge program does not satisfy the HIPAA nondiscrimination rules—for example, if the employer does not offer a reasonable alternative way to avoid the premium surcharge—the employer owes the IRS an excise tax of $100 per day per affected person.... On the other hand, if the employer provides a gift card to those employees who complete the program, the gift card may be considered a 'cash equivalent' and treated as taxable wages." (CFO)

Health Insur.ance Premium Tax Credit Guidance Issued
"[The] regulations clarify the definition of family and household income. Household income does not include the modified adjusted gross income of a family member who is required to file a tax return solely to report [a tax other than federal income tax on taxable income], such as the early distribution penalty under Code Sec. 72(q) or self-employment tax under Code Sec. 1401. However, modified adjusted gross income does include Social Security benefits not included in gross income under Code Sec. 86[.]" (Wolters Kluwer Law & Business / CCH)

Deloitte Health Care Reform Memo, May 21, 2012
Describes recent developments in various health plan and health insur.ance matters at the federal and state levels. This issue includes a discussion of the disclosure requirements of the ACA, a detailed analysis (with charts) of recent CCIIO guidance on its approach to implementing a federally-facilitated exchange in states not operating a state-based exchange, and a summary of various state legislative updates. (Deloitte Center for Health Solutions)

HHS Doesn't Speak for Many Women
"In the propaganda surrounding the mandate, HHS seems to suggest that women's only stake in the matter is 'free' contraception. This is a shallow—and frankly demeaning—view of women, who, equally with men, have an important stake in the preservation of religious freedom in the United States. Three months ago, [the author] drafted an open letter to the administration, framing women's opposition to the contraception mandate, [and] sent it to two dozen friends, asking their support. Twelve weeks later, and strictly on the basis of woman-to-woman emailing, that letter boasts 28,000 women's signatures, now visible at www.womenspeakforthemselves.com." (The Washington Post; free registration required)

Addiction Affliction: Psychiatrists' Revisions Could Prove Costly
"The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is undergoing revision, and one part to come under fire is a proposed expansion of the list of symptoms for drug and alcohol addiction. Critics fear that the looser language could mean millions more people being classified as addicts, thereby creating expensive consequences for health insurers and the public." (Insur.ance News)

The Fatter The Nation Is, The More You Pay
"Ever wonder why health care costs keep rising faster than inflation? One major contributor is America's struggle with weight. Estimates of the cost of treating obesity-related conditions run from $150 bil.lion to $190 bil.lion a year, the majority of which is passed on to others in the form of higher insur.ance premiums and government expenditures" (USA TODAY)

Why Do We Regulate?
"As Gabriel Kolko (one of the few historians who did understand regulatory economics) wrote ..., every major regulatory agency established in the Progressive era was established at the request of the regulated industry. There were consumer complaints of course. But the design and thrust of regulation primarily served the interests of the producers, not the consumers." (John Goodman's Health Policy Blog)

Private Insurers Blame Health Care Prices
"Unlike other recent reports on health care spending, [the 2010 HCCI Health Care Cost and Utilization Report found] that the increased spending is mostly due to unit price increases rather than changes in the quantity or intensity of services.... The excess increase in prices is a particularly relevant observation since this study was limited to individuals under 65 with employer-sponsored, private health insur.ance.... This report establishes beyond any doubt that the nation's largest private insurers have been ineffective in controlling health care prices (not to mention generating more administrative waste)." (Physicians for a National Health Program)

Compliance Checklist 2012 for Non-ERISA Plans: Qualified Governmental and Nonelecting Church Plans, Non-ERISA 403(b) Plans, 457 Plans and Nonqualified Executive Benefit Plans (PDF)
Very nice 16-page chart. (Prudential)

Questions and Proposed Answers for DOL Staff for the 2011 Joint Committee on Employee Benefits Technical Session Held on May 6, 2011 (PDF)
25 pages. 'The following questions and answers are based on informal discussions between private sector representatives of the Joint Committee on Employee Benefits (JCEB) and Department of Labor (DOL) staff. The questions were submitted by ABA members, and the responses were given at a meeting of JCEB and government representatives. (Joint Committee on Employee Benefits, American Bar Association)

Financial Executive Compensation Survey 2012 from Grant Thornton (PDF)
(Note: might take a minute to download; it's a large file.) Excerpt: "In response to financial reform legislation, the most included or planned inclusion in executive compensation programs was pay versus performance (23 percent).... Detailed figures for base salary, bonuses, long-term and stock-based compensation, retirement benefits and perquisites are provided by title, company type and company size in the following pages." (Grant Thornton)

Compensation Clawbacks Make the Front Page—and That's Not Good
"Those who measure their tenure in the executive compensation field in decades, rather than in years, know that nearly every bad law in the field is the result of Congressional or agency reaction (or overreaction) to some widely publicized occurrence. See if you can attempt to match the half-baked law with its cause celebre[.]" (Winston & Strawn LLP)

CEOs Received Modest Pay Increases in 2011, Despite Greater Company Profitability
"In the second year of mandatory say-on-pay, companies responded proactively to the increasing power wielded by their shareholders by holding pay nearly flat and increasing emphasis on longer-term pay-for-performance programs.... For the second year in a row, long-term incentives increased, growing 5.5 percent to $7 mil.lion, leaving total direct compensation with a modest 2.8 percent growth to $10.3 mil.lion." (Hay Group)

The Number of Those Working Past 65 Is at a Record High
"'The fact of the matter is that this aging-but-not-yet-aged segment of the baby boomer class can't afford to retire,' said David A. Rosenberg, the chief economist of Gluskin Sheff ..., noting that overall household net worth was 15 percent lower than at the prerecession peak. 'Dreams of the 5,000-square-foot McMansion being a viable retirement asset have morphed into nightmares of a deflationary ball and chain.'" (The New York Times; free registration required)

McGraw Wentworth Survey Shows Cost of Providing Health Care Growing at 6%, Yet Many Employers Hold Their Costs Flat
(McGraw Wentworth)

Segal Announces New New York Regional Manager
(The Segal Company)

Blue Cross & Blue Shield Of Rhode Island Unveils New Health Plan For Small Employer Market With Choice Of Three Benefit Designs
(Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Rhode Island)