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BenefitsLink Health & Welfare Plans Newsletter
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Employee Benefits Jobs
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Webcasts and Conferences
COBRA Compliance Workshop
in Washington
on June 22, 2012
presented by U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)
COBRA and Affordable Care Act Compliance Workshop
in Idaho
on August 1, 2012
presented by U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)
Fiduciary Education, DOL & IRS Correction Programs, and Health Laws including the Affordable Care Act Workshop
in Florida
on August 8, 2012
presented by U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)
Davis Bacon Plans
Nationwide
on September 12, 2012
presented by McKay Hochman Co., Inc.
Qualified Plan Essentials Plus Series
Nationwide
on August 14, 2012
presented by McKay Hochman Co., Inc.
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Maybe Health Care Growth Really Is Slowing
"Medicare actuaries expect health-care costs to grow 0.9 percent faster than the rest of the economy between 2015 and 2021. For health care, that's actually a relatively low number, especially when you consider what health-care costs growth looked like in the past. To put that in perspective, a lot of health-care plans often aim to limit health-care cost growth to Gross Domestic Product plus 1 percent, and that's usually seen as a lofty goal.... [T]he Medicare actuaries think that could be the road we're headed down."
(The Washington Post; free registration required)
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Do Plan Changes Confuse Your Employees? [Advert.]
No matter how savvy your employees, today’s benefits world can confuse the most sophisticated consumer. That’s why more organizations use BeneCom for benefits communication. We know what employees need to make their benefits work for them - and you.
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Cost of Raising Children Grows; Health Care Is Big Reason
"The grand total for a child born in 2011 is $234,900—$295,560 if inflation is factored in—for all child-related expenses, from birth to age 17. That's a 3.5 percent increase over last year.... One of the two main drivers of the increase is health care costs, which include health insur.ance premiums not paid by an employer as well as doctors' visits and prescription drugs not covered by insur.ance. In 1960 health care costs represented 4 percent of all child-rearing expenses. This year, it represents 8 percent."
(Kaiser Health News)
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[Opinion]
Tax Policy Meets the Affordable Care Act: The Case of the Premium Tax (PDF)
"The ACA premium tax owes its roots to a debate over health insur.ance policy. Perhaps due to those origins, the premium tax fails to obey basic principles with regard to the tax treatment of costs, thereby tilting the playing field in favor of tax-exempt insurers. In addition, the ACA exempts from the premium tax a particular class of non-profit insurers. This serves to further tilt the playing field, as well as provide strong incentives to reorganize lines of business for tax purposes. These design flaws suggest dramatic impacts on competition in health insur.ance markets, with potentially large tax-based shifting of purchase patterns and business organizational forms."
(American Action Forum)
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[Opinion]
N.Y. Insur.ance Co. Exec: 'Life Will Go On,' Expensively, Without Individual Mandate
"If the Supreme Court strikes down the health law, New York would be in a somewhat unique position, according to David Abernethy, a senior vice president of EmblemHealth [whose companies] insure almost 3 mil.lion people in the state. Abernethy says unlike other states, New York already requires insurers to cover all applicants, regardless of health status- that's known as 'guaran.teed issue.'" [Video and transcript of interview at link.]
(Kaiser Health News)
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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[Official Guidance]
Beware This Threat to Executive Compensation Tax Deductions
"It is well known that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ... significantly limits the ability of health-insur.ance companies to deduct payment of compensation beginning in 2013. What is not so well known is that the IRS might apply this limitation to health-care services providers that are not typically considered to be insur.ance companies, to captive insur.ance companies, and even to companies outside the health-insur.ance industry."
(CFO.com)
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Small Businesses Face Little Known Life Insur.ance Tax Trap
"Employers who carry key man insur.ance and other common forms of employer-owned life insur.ance need to watch out for a potentially costly trap.... [If] proper notice and consent forms aren't completed before the policy is issued, the death benefit is taxable, when it would normally be tax exempt."
(Forbes)
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Another Case in the Growing List of Recent Litigation Over Executive Compensation
"[D]espite the fact that Dodd-Frank Act Section 951 explicitly makes the Shareholder Say on Parachute Pay vote non-binding, the strike suit lawyers have been quick to file lawsuits against companies that have made these disclosures. For example, after Encore Bancshares, Inc. filed its proxy statement requesting that shareholders approve of its acquisition by Cadence Bancorp, LLC, Encore 'shareholders' quickly filed a class action against officers and directors of Encore alleging, among other things, that they breached their fiduciary duties due to the compensation payments that resulted from Encore's sale, and breached their fiduciary duty of disclosure in connection with the Shareholder Say on Parachute Pay disclosures. The litigation did not seek to derail the transaction, only to collect money from the officers and directors (or their insur.ance policy)."
(Winston & Strawn LLP)
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Qualified Support for Nonqualified Plans
"At a time when shareholders are voting down executive pay packages in droves ... financial experts have been advocating richer retirement benefits for the top brass.... [M]ost attention centers on nonqualified deferred compensation plans, in which executives squirrel away a portion of their salary above the maximum that qualifies for tax deferrals under federal 401(k) nondiscrimination rules. Historically ... companies have added matching contributions as high as 50 percent. Although no one seems to keep overall U.S. statistics, the accounts in the Prudential Retirement survey total about $13 bil.lion. However, these 'accounts' are often just bookkeeping entries, rather than actual investment pools, and can be wiped out in a corporate bankrup.tcy."
(Institutional Investor)
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