EmployeeBenefitsJobs.com logo BenefitsLink.com logo

BenefitsLink Health & Welfare Plans Newsletter

September 5, 2012 Get Retirement News  |  Advertise  |  Unsubscribe  |  Past Issues  |  Search

Employee Benefits Jobs

Sales Support Project Manager
for Verisight, Inc. in CA

Employee Education Consultant
for PNC in MI

Sales Associate
for Verisight, Inc. in ANY STATE

Vested Interest Project Manager
for PNC in PA

Pension Manager
for Hogan Lovells in DC

Retirement Plan Account Manager
for Johnson & Dugan in CA

Associate/Senior Associate
for Buck Consultants in IL

Regional Marketing Director
for John Hancock in TX

Post Your Job on EmployeeBenefitsJobs.com

View All Jobs

RSS feed for jobs RSS Feed: All Jobs


Webcasts and Conferences

"The Ins and Outs of Benefits, Rights, and Features" Web Seminar
Nationwide on September 25, 2012 presented by SunGard Relius

Health Care Reform - How Will It Affect You?
in Ohio on October 16, 2012 presented by Cedar Brook Financial Partners


We also publish the BenefitsLink Retirement Plans Newsletter (free): Subscribe

 

[Guidance Overview]

New Guidance on Measuring Full-Time Employee Status
"The health care reform law defines a full-time employee for this purpose as one who is employed on average at least 30 hours per week. Previous guidance acknowledged that month-by-month determinations of full-time status can be difficult and proposed safe harbors for identifying full-time employees; this latest Notice solidifies and expands on these safe harbors for ongoing employees, new variable hour employees, and new seasonal employees." (Faegre Baker Daniels)


[Advert.]

Earn One of Four Certificates -- October 15-20, Washington, D.C.

Sponsored by IFEBP (International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans)

Earn a certificate in Retirement Plans, Health Care Plans, Benefit Plan Administration, or Public Sector Benefits Administration. Register today.


[Guidance Overview]

Guidance Addresses 90-day Waiting Period, Full-time Employees for Employer Mandate
"Although the voluntary safe harbors set out in Notice 2012-58 will be helpful to employers in determining who are full-time employees, they come with a fair amount of administrative complexity, particularly in structuring the measurement and stability periods. In addition, the guidance indicates that employers will need to notify employees of their plan eligibility status after the measurement period. According to the IRS, additional guidance will address the treatment of employees who experience a change in employment status." (Practical Law Company)

State of Michigan to Appeal Decision Prohibiting Cut in Teacher Salaries to Pay for Retiree Health Care
"The state will appeal a ruling that declared unconstitutional a 3% deduction from school employee pay to support post-retirement health care ... In a 2-1 opinion in August, the Michigan Court of Appeals said a 2010 law that cut 3% from the pay of school employees impaired contracts and took private property without compensation or due process. The ruling could result in refunds of about $508 million being held in escrow." (Detroit Free Press)

How Employees Can Make the Most of Health Insurance Changes for 2013
"Employers are making other adjustments to costs and incentives that may make a big difference in your expenses. Here are some changes to look out for and strategies for making the most of them: Extra out-of-pocket expenses.... More high-deductible plans and health savings accounts.... Better tools to compare health care costs.... Stronger incentives to participate in wellness programs.... Reduced flexible-spending limits." (Chicago Tribune; free registration required)

Medicare Part D Premiums Holding Steady
"As it has since 2010, the average monthly premium is projected to hover around $30, the federal Department of Health and Human Services has announced. Last year, the actual amount came in a few cents lower, at $29.67. And the dread doughnut hole, which this year suspends coverage once spending hits $2,930, will kick in a few dollars later, at $2,970." (The New York Times)

Health Plan Market Primed for Further Consolidation
"Health insurers believe that going big will give them an advantage in the post-health system reform marketplace and expect to continue to consolidate beyond two major acquisitions announced this summer.... As enrollment grows, states are expected to rely more heavily on managed care companies to administer benefits, particularly for the chronically ill. At the same time, the aging population is expected to mean growth in Medicare Advantage enrollment." (American Medical Association)

ML Strategies Health Care Reform Update, September 4, 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)

Young People Pay Less For Health Coverage, Older People Pay More, Under Maine's 'Market-Based' Approach
"Even as many states gear up for tougher insurance regulations under the federal health law, Maine lawmakers last year bucked the trend, loosening rules they blamed for some of the highest premiums in the nation. Proponents promised lower rates for all Maine residents, with increased competition among insurers. But six months after the state's rules took effect, no new insurers have entered the state—and premiums have gone up for the vast majority of small businesses. The results have been mixed for individuals: Everyone under 40 saw rate cuts, while most people over 55 received increases, some as high as 18 percent[.]" (Kaiser Health News)

Agencies Issue Guidance on Shared Responsibility, 90-Day Waiting Period Limitation Provisions under the Affordable Care Act
"The guidance also provides a number of examples to illustrate how the safe harbors apply to such employees; and seeks public input on a variety of issues to help the agencies craft a final rule on the shared responsibility provision. All comments must be received by September 30, 2012." (Littler Mendelson LLC)

[Opinion]

Covering Part-Time and Seasonal Employees
"Some method is necessary for determining when employees who are hired without an expectation that they will be full-time employees in fact become full-time employees. But giving employers more than a year to figure out whether an employee is working full-time seems excessive. Under previous proposed guidance, a maximum of 6 months was allowed for this determination. This approach will end up increasing the number of the uninsured, or at least those insured through the exchanges without employer assistance, and is to that extent a disappointment to consumers." (Physicians for a National Health Program)

Benefits in General; Executive Compensation

Seventh Circuit Defines Scope of ERISA 510 Claim of Retaliation (PDF)
"[A]n employee's grievance is within Section 510's scope whether or not the employer solicited information. It does not mean that Section 510 covers trivial bellyaches—the statute requires the retaliation to be 'because' of a protected activity.... Someone must ask a question, and the adverse action must be caused by the question or the response. What's more, the grievance must be a plausible one, though not necessarily one on which the employee is correct. We have held that the anti-retaliation provision of Title VII does not protect employees who make insubstantial complaints." (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit)

An 'Indefinite Reprieve' of Essential Functions of Job Not a Reasonable Accommodation under the ADA
"[E]mployers generally feel as though they have no clue as to their legal obligations when it comes to providing a leave of absence as a reasonable accommodation under the ADA after an employee's 12 weeks of FMLA leave has been exhausted.... A recent federal appellate court case makes clear that an employee is properly subject to termination when she cannot provide a reasonable estimate regarding when she will be able to resume all essential functions of her position." (FMLA Insights)

Cypen & Cypen Newsletter for August 30, 2012
Covers employee benefit developments with an emphasis on governmental plans. Topics in this issue include: Benefit Reductions Still Top Worry for American Workers; County Wellness Program Not in Violation of ADEA; the Lost Decade of the Middle Class; Indianapolis Mayor Okays Domestic Partner Benefits; San Francisco Retirement System Can Tell Grand Jury To Pound Sand; and Individual Retirement Account Balances, Contributions and Rollovers. (Cypen & Cypen)

Access to Paid Leave, 2011
"On average, 59 percent of wage and salary workers had access to paid leave at their main jobs in 2011. The proportion of white workers with access to paid leave (59 percent) was about the same as the average for all workers; Black or African American and Asian workers were about as likely to have access to paid leave (61 percent and 62 percent, respectively). Hispanic workers were less likely than non-Hispanic workers to have access to paid leave." (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Cultural Cognition Insights into Judicial Decisionmaking in Employee Benefits Cases: Lessons from Conkright v. Frommert
"Decisionmaking hubris with cognitive origins is present today in many labor and employment law cases in the United States. In two previous law review articles, I explored whether anthropological and psychological explanations of judicial decisionmaking could provide meaningful insights into how U.S. Supreme Court Justices decided some of the more controversial labor and employment law decisions.... I considered potential social science and legal debiasing techniques for ridding these decisions of delegitimizing bias, while simultaneously making them more acceptable to a larger segment of society. This article proposes to investigate how these opinion-writing and institutional debiasing strategies could work in practice [under ERISA]. The hope is that the professionalization of the judicial corps through the establishment of ERISA courts based on the bankruptcy court model might promote opinion-writing debiasing techniques that reduce the amount of cognitive illiberalism in employee benefits law opinions." (Paul M. Secunda of Marquette University Law School)

Press Releases



BenefitsLink.com, Inc.
1298 Minnesota Avenue, Suite H
Winter Park, Florida 32789
Phone (407) 644-4146
Fax (407) 644-2151

Lois Baker, J.D., President
David Rhett Baker, J.D., Editor and Publisher
Holly Horton, Business Manager

Copyright © 2012 BenefitsLink.com, Inc. but feel free to forward this newsletter if done without modification in any way.

All materials contained in this newsletter are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of BenefitsLink.com, Inc., or in the case of third party materials, the owner of that content. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.

Links to Web sites other than those owned by BenefitsLink.com, Inc. are offered as a service to readers. The editorial staff of BenefitsLink.com, Inc. was not involved in their production and is not responsible for their content.

Useful links: