Senior Compensation Analyst
for Buck Consultants in IL

Pension Plan Administrator
for MAGII Pension Services in NY

Senior Account Executive - Group Benefits
for The Fedeli Group in OH

Plan Administrator
for The Newport Group, Inc. in FL, TX, VA

Retirement Plan Education Specialist
for The Newport Group, Inc. in NC

Senior Section 125 Compliance Analyst
for Insperity in TX

Retirement Plans Regional Sales Manager
for Mutual of Omaha in DC, MD

Retirement Plans Regional Sales Manager
for Mutual of Omaha in DE, NJ, PA

Retirement Plans Regional Sales Manager
for Mutual of Omaha in CT, MA, RI

Retirement Plans Regional Sales Manager
for Mutual of Omaha in MA

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Health Care Reform after the Supreme Court Decision
Nationwide on July 11, 2012 presented by Buck Consultants

After the Supreme Court’s Ruling: What’s Next for Employer Plans?
Nationwide on July 18, 2012 presented by Thomson Reuters / EBIA

[Official Guidance]

CCIIO Updates Lists of Group Health Insur.ance Products for Use in Benchmarking Essential Health Benefits
"This document provides information to facilitate States' selection of the benchmark plans that would serve as the reference plans for the essential health benefits (EHB). ... Using data from HealthCare.gov, this document provides below an updated list of the three largest small group insur.ance products ranked by enrollment for each State. In addition, we are providing lists of the three largest nationally available Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHBP) plans, a benchmark option under the intended approach outlined in the bulletin. We are also providing the single largest Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insur.ance Program (FEDVIP) dental and vision plans respectively, based on enrollment." (Center for Consumer Information & Insur.ance Oversight)

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

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.

Clarification Needed on 'Minimum Value' of Collectively Bargained Plans
"Employers face uncertainty about how some of the provisions of the 2010 law overhauling the nation's health care system affect collective bargaining agreements, now that the Supreme Court has upheld the law.... One question is whether an employer could negotiate a future contract under which the employer and workers split the cost of health benefits 50/50 ... Under PPACA, a plan could fail the law's minimum value test if the employer is not subsidizing at least 60 percent of the overall value of the plan's health benefits." (Bloomberg BNA)

Some Employers Ponder Health Plan Design Shift from Defining Benefits to Defining Contributions
"Many Chicago-area employers have remained on the sidelines with their employee health plans, waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether the 2010 health care overhaul passed constitutional muster. But with the court's decision last week to uphold most of the law, companies may pursue a historic change. Many employers are quietly considering a move away from traditional defined benefit plans and toward defined contribution plans, which set aside a fixed amount of money each year for employees to use toward health care costs." (Chicago Tribune; free registration required)

Louisiana says No to ACA's Medicaid and Exchange Provisions
Transcript of interview with Gov. Bobby Jindal: "We declared over a year ago we were not going to do the exchanges. We said immediately after the court's ruling we're not going to be expanding our Medicaid program.... We know from other states' experiences [the cost for setting up the exchanges] could easily run in the tens of millions of dollars. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The reality is, the Medicaid expansion—we've calculated—our health department calculated the first 10 years of implementation would cost our taxpayers over $3 bil.lion." (Fox News)

ML Strategies Weekly Health Care Reform Update, June 18, 2012 (PDF)
Weekly update on developments in federal and state health care reform legislation and regulations. Includes summaries of recent announcements and regulatory activity by HHS, CCIIO, IRS and CMS. (Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.)

Healthcare Costs Rising Worldwide
"Insurers list the top three causes of cost increases as new medical technology, over-prescription of care by practitioners and the fact that providers are becoming more profit-driven. Outside the U.S., companies traditionally relied on public programs to provide most of their employees' coverage, but much of that burden is being shifted to employers as countries scale back on public health services and employee demand for healthcare rises." (Treasury & Risk)

2012 Global Medical Trends
"Health care costs show no signs of slowing their relentless rise. Across every market, the question many multinationals now face is: How can we provide effective medical benefits and promote better workforce health, while also controlling costs? ... The average medical trend is 9.8% for 2011 and projected to be at a similar level for 2012. Aside from Europe, all regions are continuing to experience global medical trend rates rising at double-digit levels." (Towers Watson)

After The Supreme Court, Higher Cost and Unrealistic Timeline Will Force Major Changes
"The Supreme Court has spoken, but problems built into the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have not been resolved by the decision and may have worsened. Even accepting the law's assumptions about how the health system should be reformed, actually putting all the pieces in place is exceptionally expensive and difficult.... In its March 2012 update, CBO estimated that the net cost of the ACA's coverage provisions is $1.25 tril.lion over the 11 years between 2012 and 2022. Next year, CBO will add another year to the table at a cost exceeding $175 bil.lion. Even though that cost was there all along, the fact that the estimating window now includes it will make for some excellent political fodder." (HealthAffairs Blog)

Spending on Children's Health Care Rising Faster Than Adults
"A new report ... finds that children's health spending is rising faster than that of adults ... Infants and toddlers (age 0-3) made up 17 percent of the population of children with employer-based coverage but accounted for nearly one-third of per capita spending on children in 2010.... Per capita spending on children's health care rose to $2,123 in 2010, an 18.6 percent increase from 2007." (AHIP Coverage)

Health Care Might Shift Away from Employer-Provided System
"The Supreme Court's endorsement of the federal health care law last week could spur more employers across the nation to relinquish their long-standing role as chief health care buyer for their workers. This shift has already begun among some big employers shedding their role in providing retiree health benefits, and experts say the court's decision could eventually lead companies to pursue a similar approach with current workers. With the Affordable Care Act still on track to offer numerous new benefits, such as guaran.teed coverage for all adults starting in 2014, some companies may want to stop providing health coverage and instead give workers money to buy their own." (The Republic)

HHS Office for Civil Rights Releases Protocol for HITECH-Mandated HIPAA Audits
"On June 26, 2012, OCR released the protocol that will be used to perform the audits required by HITECH. The protocol addresses seven aspects of the Privacy Rule and three aspects of the Security Rule.... The protocol also covers the requirements of the Breach Notification Rule. In all, the protocol establishes 77 performance criteria and related audit procedures under the Security Rule and 88 performance criteria and related audit procedures under the Privacy and Breach Notification Rules." (Faegre & Benson LLP)

Deloitte Health Care Memo, July 2, 2012
The health care reform memos are issued on a weekly basis, highlighting news from the previous week's activities in the administration and implications for the C-suite and various stakeholder groups. Articles include: Discussion of the Supreme Court ACA Decision; OIG Asks for Increased Documentation for IRS Staffing Increases; ACA Implementation Timeline: July 2012 Through January 1, 2013; Reactions to Supreme Court Rulings from Industry Trade Groups. (Deloitte)

Self-Employed Remain Divided on Support for ACA
"In the wake of the Supreme Court's final ruling on the Affordable Care Act, the self-employed and micro-businesses are concerned as to the impact the law will have on their health care budgets when the law goes into full effect in 2014.... With the law moving forward into the implementation stage, the self-employed are, once again, looking for more information from the federal government regarding issues of affordability and cost of care. Business owners were divided on whether they supported the law or not, with half saying that they opposed the Affordable Care Act and half saying that they either fully or mainly support the law or liked some of the law but opposed other parts of the law." (National Association for the Self-Employed)

Public Reacts to Supreme Court Decision on the ACA: Slight Majority Says 'Move On'
"This poll fielded following the Supreme Court's decision upholding the heart of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) finds a majority of Americans (56 percent) now say they would like to see the law's detractors stop their efforts to block its implementation and move on to other national problems. ... The public is also divided in its emotional reaction to the decision, with similar shares reporting being angry (17 percent) and enthusiastic (18 percent). Negative emotions run highest among Republicans who support the Tea Party movement, with 49 percent of this group saying they are angry at the decision." (Kaiser Family Foundation)

Text of Response by American Academy of Actuaries to EBSA Request for Information on Stop-Loss Insur.ance (PDF)
The linked article responds to questions from EBSA about how small employers' use of stop-loss insur.ance or insur.ance for self-insured health plans affects the market for fully insured small health coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Questions from the RFI include: How common is the use of stop loss insur.ance in connection with self-insured arrangements? How common is self-funding? How is the Affordable care Act expected to affect self-funding? What are common attachment points for stop loss insur.ance policies, and what factors are used to determine these attachment points? Are employee-level ("specific") attachment points more common, or are group-level ("aggregate") attachment points more common? (American Academy of Actuaries)

[Opinion]

Health Care Law's Medicaid Provision Too Good for States to Pass Up
"Over the coming weeks and months, you're going to hear a lot of Republican governors fulminate against the Affordable Care Act and swear to do everything possible to stand in its way—including refusing to participate in the Medicaid expansion. In fact, the governors of Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana have already promised to do exactly that. Ignore them. The deal the federal government is offering states on Medicaid is too good to refuse." (The Washington Post WonkBlog)

IRS Revenue Ruling Addresses Code Sec. 162(m), RSUs, Dividends and Dividend Equivalents
"In Rev. Rul. 2012-19, the IRS ruled on whether dividends and dividend equivalents related to restricted stock and RSUs can be treated as performance-based compensation for purposes of Section 162(m)(4)(c). Rev. Rul. 2012-19 contains two fact patterns, regarding publicly held corporations X and Y. Both have restricted common stock and RSU plans based on the common stock of each. The restricted stock and RSUs granted under the plans of both corporations vest upon reaching certain pre-established, objective performance goals and otherwise meet the requirements of Treas. Reg. 1.162-27(e). Therefore, compensation received due to the vesting of the restricted stock and vesting and payment of the RSUs would qualify as performance-based compensation and be excluded from the applicable employee's compensation subject to the Section 162(m) limitation." (Winston & Strawn LLP)

Surprising Ways the New Health Care Plan Can Speed Up Your Financial Independence Day
"The real benefits are for early retirees who are too young to qualify for Medicare but don't have access to a group health insur.ance plan.... [S]tarting in 2014, the law will forbid insurers from denying coverage to people based on pre-existing conditions and will limit how much insurers can discriminate based on age. In addition, it may become easier to shop for health insur.ance through new online state-based exchanges." (Forbes)

Pay Decisions Narrowly Focused on Benchmarks
"Many organizations' pay decisions may be misguided or unbalanced as they spend too much time focused on external comparisons and not enough time looking internally to measure and assess the actual workforce and business impact of their total reward practices. According to new research by WorldatWork and Mercer, most compensation professionals use techniques such as benchmarking among internal and external peer groups (95% and 90%, respectively) and ongoing reporting (87%) to make pay decisions in their organizations. Using more sophisticated analytical techniques such as projections, simulations and predictive modeling are significantly lower at 80%, 64% and 43%, respectively." (Mercer)

Same-S.ex Marriage: Legal and Legislative Update (PDF)
"As state and federal law continues to evolve, it is important that employers offering benefits to same-s.ex domestic partners understand and monitor how state and federal laws affect these benefits." (Buck Consultants)

Employee Ownership Update for July 2, 2012
NCEO Executive Director Loren Rodgers discusses how the Affordable Care Act will increase capital gains rates on some taxpayers, which in turn will increase the value of the ESOP Section 1042 rollover; a case alleging a fiduciary violation resulting from following plan directions; employee ownership outside the U.S.; and the Aspirations 2012 conference. (National Center for Employee Ownership)

Pension Provisions Contained in Highway and Student Loan Bill Will Need Careful Evaluation Says Mercer
(Mercer)