Implementation Partner
for Lincoln Financial Group in ANY STATE, CT, IN, TX

Qualified Plan Administrator
for SeaGate Benefits Administrators, Inc. in OH

Account Manager
for Lincoln Financial Group in ANY STATE, IL, IN

Retirement Services Sales Director
for MassMutual Financial Group in AL, GA

Operations & Withdrawal Processing Associate
for Iron Administration in IL

Senior RFP Strategist
for Prudential in CT

Sr. Manager Retirement Education Sales
for Charles Schwab in OH

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"Fundamentals of 401(k) and Other Qualified Plans" - Chicago
in Illinois on July 24, 2012 presented by SunGard Relius

"ERPA Test Review - Part II" Web Seminar, A 3-part Program
Nationwide on July 10, 2012 presented by SunGard Relius

IRS Guidance on the $2,500 Limit for Health FSAs: Implementation Issues for 2013 and Beyond
Nationwide on June 21, 2012 presented by Thomson Reuters / EBIA

"Form 8955-SSA: Who, What, When, and How" Web Seminar
Nationwide on July 10, 2012 presented by SunGard Relius

"Participant Disclosures After FAB 2012-2: A Game Changer" Web Seminar
Nationwide on July 17, 2012 presented by SunGard Relius

"Death and the 401(k) Plan" Web Seminar
Nationwide on July 19, 2012 presented by SunGard Relius

"457(b) Plans for 401(k) Practitioners 2012" Web Seminar
Nationwide on July 24, 2012 presented by SunGard Relius

"ERPA Test Review - Part I" Web Seminar, A 3-part Program
Nationwide on June 26, 2012 presented by SunGard Relius

Workplace Benefits Mania Conference
in Nevada on July 17, 2012 presented by Workplace Benefits Association

CFDD

[Guidance Overview]

CMS Addresses Affordable Care Act Requirements for Student Health Policies
"[T]he rule modifies the phase-in of the annual dollar limits on essential health benefits, requires notice to be given to students explaining how the coverage differs from other individual market coverage, and applies the medical loss ratio (MLR) requirements to the issuers (although certain adjustments are provided). With the goal of having the new requirements apply to the 2012-13 academic year, the final rule is generally effective for policy years beginning on or after July 1, 2012. The MLR requirements apply beginning January 1, 2013." (Deloitte via BenefitsLink.com)

Supreme Court Decision on Health Care   [Advert.]

What are the implications for you and your organization? Find out in our free report – and sign up for a special webcast

President Richard Nixon Wanted Mandatory Health Coverage; A Look Back at Health Reform Efforts
"The Supreme Court's upcoming ruling on President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law comes after a century of debate over what role the government should play in helping people in the United States afford medical care." (The New York Times; free registration required)

Georgia Now Allowing Cross-State Health Insur.ance Sales, But So Far No Takers
Audio recording. "Some Republicans have been touting a plan to reduce health insur.ance costs by allowing insurers to sell plans across state lines. Georgia has passed legislation to allow this to happen, and the new law goes into effect next week. But so far, no insurers have taken Georgia up on the offer." (National Public Radio)

What to Expect from the Supreme Court Ruling on Health Care Reform
"Whatever the justices conclude—whether they uphold the law, rule that Congress doesn't have the power to require citizens and legal residents to maintain health coverage, or strike down the 2010 health care reform legislation in its entirety—the decision is expected to reshape employer-sponsored health insur.ance." (Journal of Accountancy)

Economists Expecting Resurgence in Health Care Spending
"Federal health actuaries anticipate that growth in national health spending, which has been restrained in recent years, will continue to accelerate as the economy recovers and more Americans potentially gain health coverage." (American Medical Association)

Outcomes-Driven Health Care & Benefit Design - July 24-26 - Chicago   [Advert.]

Health and benefit leaders need proactive, aggressive action to change employer and employee purchasing strategies, advance healthy outcomes, and achieve a data-drive ROI - join the nation's most innovative employers to develop your strategic plan.

Wayne County, Michigan, Faces $1.5 Bil.lion Unpaid Tab for Retiree Health Care
"To cover unfunded health care and pension costs for current and future Wayne County government retirees, every man, woman and child living in the county would have to ante up more than $1,100 over the next 30 years. Or, collectively, $2.1 bil.lion.... The county is paying about $33.6 mil.lion to cover retiree health care—enough to cover only current year costs. To start paying down its long-term liability, it would have to add $52 mil.lion a year." [Wayne County, Michigan, is the county in which Detroit is located.] (Detroit Free Press)

New Plans Help Ease Impact of Rising Health Care Costs
"Ninety-seven percent of Associated Industries of Massachusetts [AIM] member employers listed health care costs as their No. 1 concern.... Health care costs have increased by 50 percent since 2003, according to AIM, and the average cost paid by both employers and workers to keep a family covered by a health maintenance organization is $15,864 a year. Health insur.ance stopped being a fringe benefit a long time ago.... to stop or slow the huge annual increase in their health insur.ance premiums ... a trend ... is sweeping through the state's business community: limited network and tiered health coverage plans." (Worcester Telegram & Gazette Corp.)

What a Supreme Court Decision to Eliminate the Individual Mandate Could Mean for Coverage and Costs (PDF)
"Could the ACA function successfully without the mandate? This brief summarizes the effects on costs and coverage if the Supreme Court rules to eliminate the individual mandate. Findings indicate ACA could function, but increases in coverage will be lower and private insur.ance premiums would be higher." (Urban Institute)

Why High Deductible Plans Matter
"[The author recalls] an analysis that demonstrated that the sum of workers' salaries and benefits has stayed remarkably constant in real terms over the last two decades. This means that companies have compensated for the increasing cost of health insur.ance over time by holding back on wage increases. You can understand this. After all, if companies are not able to increase the price of goods and services they sell to the public, they need to hold factor costs relatively constant. So if it was costing them more and more to provide health insur.ance to their workers, an offsetting amount would have to be removed from possible wage increases. This dynamic is still in place, but it is showing up in a different way, by shifting costs to workers in the form of higher deductible health insur.ance policies." (The Health Care Blog)

Resources for Creation of Affordable Insur.ance Exchanges
"CCIIO hosted the Health Insur.ance Exchange System-Wide Meeting (Exchange Meeting) for state exchange grantees and related state agencies on May 21-23, 2012 in Washington, DC. This page contains the materials presented at this conference." (Center for Consumer Information & Insur.ance Oversight)

[Opinion]

How 'Obamacare' Has Put Nation on Right Track
"'Obamacare' is helping our nation achieve health care that is excellent, accessible to all and affordable. In the 17 months that [the author] led the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), [he] saw how this law is helping tens of millions of families and is finally putting our health care system on the right track." [Authored by Donald M. Berwick, former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.] (The Cap Times)

[Opinion]

Affordable Care Act: We Can Do Better
"We are alone in the industrialized world in employing a profit-driven private insur.ance system for funding our health care. The result is a fragmented patchwork of coverage, and chronic conflict between generation of returns for shareholders versus taking care of patients. The fragmentation results in extraordinary inefficiencies, with 31 cents of every health care dollar (totaling $400 bil.lion per year) diverted to overhead, marketing, profit, executive compensation and the imposition of excessive paperwork on providers." (Physicians for a National Health Program)

[Opinion]

Impact of the Health Insur.ance Tax 'Likely Would Be Catastrophic'
"[T]he new Health Insur.ance Tax (HIT) will tax health insur.ance companies $87 bil.lion in assessments between 2014 and 2019, and in order to bear the burden of the HIT, health insur.ance companies will be forced to raise premiums. But the cost of the HIT will be disguised because it will be folded into higher premiums that small businesses pay." (AHIP Coverage)

[Opinion]

The Return of the Public Option
"[T]he individual mandate is so essential to spreading the risk and cost of health care over the whole population, including younger and healthier people, that some analysts believe a Court decision that nixes the mandate will effectively spell the end of the Act anyway. Yet it could have exactly the opposite effect.... [I]n striking down the least popular part of Obamacare—the individual mandate—the Court will inevitably bring into question one of its most popular parts—coverage of pre-existing conditions. And in so doing, open alternative ways to maintain that coverage—including ideas, like the public option, that were rejected in favor of the mandate." (The Health Care Blog)

[Guidance Overview]

Squeaky Wheel Gets Grease: Proposed IRS Regs Remove Signature Requirement for Form 8955-SSA Extension
"Plan administrators and their advisors will be relieved to have the extension procedure for Form 8955-SSA simplified to conform to the Form 5500 rule, eliminating a detail that was especially easy to overlook since the extension filing requirements for the two forms are otherwise so similar. (Several commenters had requested this change, showing how important and effective comments can be, even when they are offered outside a formal comment period.) The preamble anticipates that the IRS will revise Form 5558 and its instructions to reflect the change, presumably after the proposed regulations become final." (Thomson Reuters/EBIA)

[Guidance Overview]

SEC Finalizes Independence Standards for Compensation Committees and Outside Advisers
"Overall it is not expected the final rules will have a material impact on most companies, although some disclosure changes are required.... [T]he final rules provide that the compensation committee may in its sole discretion decide whether to retain the services of an independent compensation adviser and, in doing so, have the sole authority for the appointment, payment and oversight of such an adviser. The final rules also clarify that the compensation adviser is not required to be independent, but the compensation committee must evaluate six factors when deciding whether to hire such an adviser[.]" (HR Policy Association)

[Guidance Overview]

SEC Takes Action to Set Standards for Compensation Committees and Compensation Advisers
"While some public companies already follow procedures to reduce conflicts of interest, certain aspects of this new rule may mean that many public companies (and, particularly, their compensation committees) will need to make substantial changes to the way they review and monitor the compensation packages of their executives." (Littler Mendelson LLC)

[Guidance Overview]

SEC Mandates Listing Standards Related to Compensation Committees
"New Rule 10C-1(b)(1) requires exchanges to establish listing standards requiring each member of a listed company's compensation committee to be a member of the board of directors and to be independent. The rule does not require that exchanges adopt a uniform definition of independence. However, when developing their definitions of independence, exchanges will be required to consider relevant factors, including a director's source of compensation, including any consulting, advisory or compensatory fee paid by the issuer and whether the director is affiliated with the issuer." (Ballard Spahr)

SEC Approves Final Rule on Compensation Committees
"The final rules (i) adopt new Rule 10C-1 requiring the national securities exchanges to establish listing standards regarding the independence of compensation committee members and the retention of compensation advisers and (ii) amend Item 407 of Regulation S-K to expand disclosure regarding compensation consultants' conflicts of interest. New Rule 10C-1 requires companies to comply with new disclosures in their proxy statements for annual meetings at which directors will be elected on or after January 1, 2013." (Jenner & Block)

Employee on FMLA Won't Be Coming Back; What Should the Employer Do?
"[This question] raises two issues: 1) What are the restoration rights of an employee who has informed you they will not return after FMLA leave? and 2) Can the employer recover its share of health care premiums paid during FMLA leave?" (FMLA Insights)

Total Rewards Programs Not So Totally Rewarding
"Companies spend lots of money on their total rewards programs—the combination of pay, benefits and development opportunities that keep employees sticking around. Yet a recent survey from Aon Hewitt finds that, despite those investments, few companies seem to be getting much out of their programs so far." (Human Resource Executive Online)

First Circuit Court of Appeals Finds DOMA Partly Unconstitutional
"This article provides a brief overview of DOMA and the First Circuit's holding and discusses its impact for employee benefit plan sponsors. At this point, the impact is mostly academic, even for the plaintiffs in Massachusetts, since the court of appeals' holding stays the mandate pending further review at the district court level. Further, the First Circuit opinion indicates that final resolution of the constitutionality of DOMA rests with the U.S. Supreme Court." (McGuire Woods LLP)

297 Ways to Share the Love: SHRM 2012 Employee Benefits Research Report
"[This report] provides comprehensive information about the types of benefits U.S. employers offer to their employees. In 2012, 297 benefits were explored, covering health care and welfare benefits, preventive health and wellness benefits, retirement savings and planning benefits, financial and compensation benefits, leave benefits, family-friendly benefits, flexible working benefits, employee programs and services, professional and career development benefits, housing and relocation benefits and business travel benefits. The report also examines trends in employee benefit offerings over the last five years." (Society for Human Resource Management)

SPD Was Plan Instrument for Purpose of Identifying ERISA Plan Administrator
"This court did not address the employer's process for designating the plan administrator, but rather focused on whether the SPD is an instrument under which a plan is operated and whether it can be used to identify the plan administrator. Since the SPD is the primary vehicle for informing participants and beneficiaries about their rights and benefits under the plan and is required to list the name, business address, and business telephone number of the plan administrator, it is not surprising that the court answered both of these questions in the affirmative. However, the court's ultimate conclusion—that the plan can act as its own plan administrator—is problematic." [Cone v. Walmart Stores, Inc. Associates' Health and Welfare Plan, 2012 WL 1946503 (M.D. Ga. 2012).] (Thomson Reuters/EBIA)

Federal District Court Awards $13,750 for Five Months' Delay in Honoring Request for SPD
"The court was compelled by the employer's unresponsiveness and lack of an excuse, noting that ERISA does not require plan participants to hire attorneys or go to the lengths seen here to find documents containing accurate and up-to-date plan information. The court also considered a claim regarding the employer's failure to provide a summary of material modifications describing changes to its long-term disability plan within 210 days after the end of the plan year in which the changes were implemented. The court ruled in favor of the employer this time, stating that while the employer technically violated ERISA by not issuing an SMM within the required timeframe, the participant was not harmed by the oversight and therefore was not entitled to monetary relief." [Latimer v. Wash. Gas Light Co., 2012 WL 2119254 (E.D. Va. 2012).] (Thomson Reuters/EBIA)

SPD Affects Plan Interpretation Notwithstanding Supreme Court's Amara Decision, Fifth Circuit Rules
"[B]ecause the SPD should be drafted to be understood by participants, the court held that ambiguities in the SPD must be resolved in favor of the participant. The court acknowledged the Supreme Court's decision in Cigna v. Amara ..., which held that the terms of the SPD do not constitute the terms of the plan and thus may not be enforced under ERISA Section 502(a)(1)(B). But the court nevertheless concluded that Amara did not negate prior cases holding that summaries provided to participants should be taken into account when interpreting ambiguous plan language." [Koehler v. Aetna Health Inc., 2012 WL 1949166 (5th Cir. 2012).] (Thomson Reuters/EBIA)

Hyatt Legal Plans Underscores the Importance of High-Touch Customer Service at ICPQ’s Annual Call Center Convention
(Hyatt Legal Plans, a MetLife company)

fi360 Appoints Byron Bowman General Counsel
(fi360)

EPIC Advisors Announces New Hires
(EPIC Advisors, Inc.)