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June 11, 2012 Get Retirement News  |  Advertise  |  Unsubscribe  |  Past Issues  |  Search

Employee Benefits Jobs

Service Specialist
for Envoy Financial in CO

Pension Analyst/Actuarial Student
for Hooker & Holcombe, Inc. in CT

Plan Consultant
for Sentinel Benefits & Financial Group in MA

Senior-Level ESOP Professional
for Blue Ridge ESOP Associates in VA

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Webcasts and Conferences

New ACA W-2 Reporting Requirements – Part II - Live FutureOffice Network Smartcast
Nationwide on June 14, 2012 presented by Davidson Marketing Group -- FutureOffice Network

"Fundamentals of 401(k) and Other Qualified Plans" - Minneapolis
in Minnesota on July 11, 2012 presented by SunGard Relius


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[Guidance Overview]

IRS Guidance Addresses 'Comparative Effectiveness Research' Fees (PDF)
"If an FSA or HRA is subject to the CER fee, the plan sponsor need only assume that each participant has single coverage. Medical FSAs are only subject to the CER fee if they are not considered "excepted benefits" under HIPAA. If an employer does not provide any funding for a medical FSA, it is considered "excepted". For these plans, the government will count each employee as a covered life, regardless of whether or not the employee's family is eligible for tax-favored benefits from the account." (McGraw Wentworth)


A Medicare Exchange Could Be Your Answer.   [Advert.]

Sponsored by ExtendHealth

With the group model becoming increasingly unsustainable, how do you cut costs and still take care of your retirees? Discover the top 4 reasons organizations are exiting their Group Plan & moving to a Medicare Exchange.


UnitedHealthcare: We'll Keep Many Popular Health Insur.ance Features No Matter What Supreme Court Decides
"The insurer said no matter what, it would continue to offer policyholders no-copayment preventive services, such as cancer screenings, and third-party appeals for cases where treatments are denied. United also said it would not cancel policies retroactively, except in cases of fraud.... United stopped short of saying it would continue to accept all children, no matter if they had a pre-existing medical condition." (Kaiser Health News)

June 2012 Health Sector Economic Indicators Briefs
"New data on health spending suggests the nation is in a fourth consecutive year of historically low growth, continuing a trend of roughly 4 percent growth since 2009. Health care spending grew by just 3.9 percent in April 2012 relative to April 2011, down slightly from the 4.0 percent growth rate observed in March 2012. Health care prices in April 2012 were 1.9 percent higher than in April 2011, but this increase has brought price growth barely above its February 2012 14-year low of 1.8 percent." (Altarum Institute)

Steel Retirees Offered Deeply Discounted Health Insur.ance
"A federal bankrup.tcy judge in New York [has] authorized creation of the Steel Retiree VEBA (Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association) Trust ... [under which] retirees pay 27.5 percent of their medical, prescription-drug, dental and vision benefits cost. The federal government pays the other 72.5 percent.... Eligible retirees [include those] from more than 50 bankrupt steel companies ... A key qualifier is that the steel company must have had its pension terminated and turned over to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp." (Insur.ance News)

E-Mails Highlight Extent of Obama's Deal With Drug Industry on Health Care
"Central to Mr. Obama's drive to remake the nation's health care system was an unlikely collaboration with the pharma.ceutical industry that forced unappealing trade-offs. ... The broad contours of his dealings with the industry were known in 2009, but the newly public e-mails open a window into the compromises underlying a health care law now awaiting the judgment of the Supreme Court." (The New York Times; free registration required)


The Business of On-Site Employee Health Clinics - July 24-26 - Chicago   [Advert.]

Sponsored by World Congress

The Next Phase of Worksite Clinic Innovation: Maximizing the clinic’s potential means not just offering acute medical care, but integrating the worksite clinic into the foundation of a strategic health and wellness roadmap.


Obama Aides Helped Plan Ads to Back Health Bill, GOP Says
"The drugmakers, along with lobbying groups for seniors and consumers, helped fund independent political groups to run the television ads while health-care legislation was being debated in Congress. The groups coordinated with Democratic strategists who worked with Obama's staff on the effort, according to memos and e-mails among those involved that were released ... by Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee." (Bloomberg Businessweek)

Final HHS Regs on Health Insur.ance Exchanges Provide Opportunities for Insur.ance Agents and Brokers
"In a part of the regulation issued as an interim final rule, HHS opened the door for states to allow an agent or broker to enroll individuals, employers or employees in Qualified Health Plans (QHPs), in a manner that constitutes "enrollment through the exchange," on their own website. In other words, if the consumer would be eligible for a refundable tax credit for a QHP purchased on the exchange's website, he or she is eligible to access the tax credit for purchases through the broker or agent's private web portal.... [The regulations say that] 'to the extent permitted by a State, HHS intends to work with web-based brokers that meet all applicable requirements to help consumers select health plans on-line,' revealing that the federal government is likely hoping to rely on the private sector to lift enrollment in QHPs." (HealthAffairs Blog)

Texas Exposes Self-Funded Plan Stop-Loss Policies to State Taxes
"[T]he Texas Supreme Court compelled a stop-loss insurer to pay a direct premium tax on stop-loss policies sold to self-funded health plans. Stop-loss insur.ance written in Texas for self-funded plans is not 'reinsurance' and thus must pay state levies and follow state insur.ance rules, the court held.... Instead, the court upheld the Texas Department of Insur.ance's position that 'reinsurance' can be defined as such only if the policyholder is another insur.ance company." (Thompson SmartHR Manager)

Health Insur.ance Exchanges and Early Retiree Health Coverage
"This [article] examines how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ... may change the landscape of retiree health coverage, especially for early retirees (those age 55 to 64). An increasing number of employers have capped the subsidies for coverage of early retirees or provided only access to coverage without cash subsidies. Employers that provide early retiree healthcare coverage will have to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of maintaining these benefits." (Milliman)

Proposed HHS Regs Address Collection of Data for Use in Defining Essential Health Benefits, Accreditation of Qualified Health Plans
"HHS reports in the preamble that it received approximately 11,000 comments in response to the December 2011 bulletin on its intended approach to EHB. Among other things, it appears that commenters urged HHS to publish the benefit designs of the selected benchmark plans as soon as possible since access to the benefits included in the benchmark is necessary for designing health plans. Until the definition of EHB is established (and QHPs are accredited), there will be continued uncertainty about the type of health plans that can and will be offered by insurers." (Thomson Reuters/EBIA)

Statutory Penalties, But No Fiduciary Breach, for Failure to Disclose Provider Network Information
"The plan in this case did enough right that the outcome was mostly in its favor -- the statutory penalties were essentially a slap on the wrist. But one of the judges on appeal filed a rigorous dissent, and a different court might have granted relief based on the kind of disclosure failures present here. ... Potential liability continues to exist for disclosure failures—whether deliberate, negligent, or even innocent." [Killian v. Concert Health Plan, 2012 WL 1357703 (7th Cir. 2012)] (Thomson Reuters/EBIA)

Benefits in General; Executive Compensation

Report Finds Significant Proxy Advisory Firm Influence Over Investor Say-on-Pay, Governance Votes
"Though the [IRRC] report states that it is difficult to identify the causal relationships for significant shifts in support and that large institutional investors use many sources of information, it states, 'Regardless of how wide a net they cast for informational inputs into voting decision making, most asset managers find proxy firm data particularly useful for say-on-pay [votes].' ... [The] report also references the influence of proxy advisors over issuers and cites a 2010 Center On Executive Compensation study, which found that 54 percent of companies had changed or adopted a compensation plan or policy during the prior three years to meet the standards of a proxy advisory firm." (HR Policy Association)

Employees Would Exchange Salary for Retirement Income Guaran.tee
"When asked about the desire for a guaran.teed source of income during retirement, 82% of employees would be willing to give up 5% of their salary if it meant having reliable income to help them live comfortably during their later years, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch's 2012 Workplace Benefits Report. Forty-two percent said they would be willing to give up 10% or more of their salary." (PLANSPONSOR.com)

2012 Workplace Benefits Report
"[N]ine out of 10 employers believe that financial benefits are equally or more important to potential hires today than five years ago—with half believing such benefits to be more important than ever. Confirming this, nearly 80 percent of employees view these benefits as a key factor when considering and accepting a new position." (Bank of America Merrill Lynch)

The First Circuit's DOMA Decision: What It Means for Employers
"For now, the decision will not have much impact on employee benefit plans because the Court stayed enforcement of its ruling. This means that DOMA is still in effect and will continue to operate as valid law until this case is either upheld or denied review by the U.S. Supreme Court.... So at this point, employers and plan sponsors need not make any changes to their employee benefit plans. Employers should monitor developments in the case, however, as a decision upholding the First Circuit ruling (or no decision at all) will likely have significant ramifications for employees and employers alike." (Verrill Dana LLP)

Employer Costs for Legally Required Benefits in March 2012
"Total employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged $28.78 per hour worked in March 2012. Wages and salaries averaged $20.25 per hour worked and accounted for 70.4 percent of these costs, while benefits averaged $8.53 and accounted for the remaining 29.6 percent. The average cost for legally required benefits was $2.36 per hour worked in private industry (8.2 percent of total compensation) in March 2012." (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)



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