Transition Manager - Client Integration
for Diversified in NY

Account Executive - IRC31620
for Lincoln Financial Group in NJ, NY, PA

Retirement Plans Regional Sales Manager
for Mutual of Omaha in AZ, NM

Post Your Job on EmployeeBenefitsJobs.com

View All Jobs

RSS Feed: All Jobs

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) Legislative Update
Nationwide on July 10, 2012 presented by United Benefit Advisors

ERISA Disclosure Under 404(a)(5) and 408(b)(2)
Nationwide on July 20, 2012 presented by McKay Hochman Co., Inc.

Participant Loans
Nationwide on July 11, 2012 presented by McKay Hochman Co., Inc.

SCOTUS Ruling on PPACA: Now What?
Nationwide on July 13, 2012 presented by FutureOffice Network

EPCRS, Latest Release & Recent Years
Nationwide on July 31, 2012 presented by McKay Hochman Co., Inc.

 

[Official Guidance]

Text of HHS Notice of Proposed Information Collection for Various ACA Implementation Measures
The notice (which is required by the 1995 Paperwork Reduction Act) pertains to several ACA measures: [1] Qualified Health Plan (QHP) Certification; [2] Eligibility Determinations and Enrollment for Employees in the Small Business Health Options Program; [3] Eligibility Determinations and Enrollment for Small Businesses in the Small Business Health Options Program; and [4] Eligibility Determinations for Insur.ance Affordability Programs and Enrollment through Affordable Insur.ance Exchanges, Medicaid and Children's Health Insur.ance Program Agencies. Excerpt: "Interested persons are invited to send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information[.]" (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)

DATAIR’s FlexPlus System – Makes Administration Profitable   [Advert.]

Proposals, Testing, Claims Processing, Debit Cards and more!
Plus CafeDocs/SPDs and 5500s/SARs
(888) 328-2474   Sales@DATAIR.com   www.DATAIR.com

Thousands in Massachusetts Skip Health Care Insur.ance, Pay Penalty
"Massachusetts had the nation's highest rate of health coverage even before passage of a pioneering 2006 law requiring most residents to have insur.ance. Yet tens of thousands of people ... go uncovered each year and pay a fine. Starting in 2014, when much of the national Affordable Care Act kicks in, millions of other Americans could face a similar fine, putting Massachusetts in the spotlight as a possible indicator of what lies ahead for the country." (Boston.com)

Public Health Care Blunts Effect of Declining Employer-Sponsored Coverage
"The share of Americans under age 65 with employer-sponsored health insur.ance (ESI) declined every year from 2000-10, a total of 10.6 percentage points. This erosion of ESI, especially among children, would have been much worse if not for public insur.ance (i.e., Medicaid and CHIP particularly for this group). While children experienced greater losses in ESI than adults, their insured rate actually rose." (Economic Policy Institute)

A Look at Health Sector Economic Indicators
"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)

What To Do with MLR Rebates Under Employer-Sponsored Group Health Plans
"In the case of policies issued in the individual market, the MLR rebate is paid to the policyholder. In the case of group polices that underlie employer-sponsored group health plans, the rules are more complicated, since premium contributions giving rise to the rebate are in many cases split between employee contributions (usually made on a pre-tax basis under a cafeteria plan) and employers' contributions.... MLR rebates are subject to the ERISA "plan asset" rules and fiduciary and prohibited transaction standards. This will generally require that the rebate be apportioned between employees and the employer." (Mintz Levin)

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.

[Opinion]

How to Replace Obamacare
"This history suggests that, now that Obamacare is with us, the law cannot be reversed without a credible proposal for what should take its place.... What any effective solution must involve ... is the creation of a true market in health coverage—one that drives efficiency through competition, and places health-care decisions in the hands of consumers and taxpayers, where they belong." (National Affairs)

[Opinion]

The Impact of the Supreme Court Ruling on the Federal Budget
"Large employers (50 or more employees) who do not offer insur.ance must pay penalties. But some analysts have argued that many employers will be able to pay the penalties, increase their employees' cash pay, and send them to the exchange (where those with incomes under 400 percent of the poverty standard will receive public subsidies) and have both the employer and its employees come out ahead. The reason why both would come out ahead, of course, is that the amount of the penalty can be less than the amount of the federal subsidy—so the loser in this zero-sum game is the federal budget." (Bipartisan Policy Center)

[Opinion]

Obama Administration Admits You Can't Keep Your Health Plan
"On several occasions during the health care reform debate, President Obama promised the American people, 'If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.' Now, even the Administration admits that this isn't the case, stating that 'as a practical matter, a majority of group health plans will lose their grandfather status by 2013.' Case in point: Under Obamacare, grandfathered plans are not subject to the preventative services mandate, a subset of which is the anti-conscience mandate that requires almost all non-exempted employers to provide and pay for abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization." (The Heritage Foundation)

[Opinion]

A Proposed Health Care Contract with America
"Families at the same income level should get the same help from government when they obtain private health insur.ance, regardless of where they obtain it.... Unclaimed tax relief should be made available to local safety net institutions to be used in case the uninsured cannot pay their own medical bills.... Employers should be able to purchase personal and portable insur.ance for their employees.... Patients should be able to manage more of their own health care dollars. Insur.ance should not just pay for the cost of becoming ill, it should also pay the higher premium required if patients switch health plans." (National Center for Policy Analysis)