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September 12, 2012 Get Retirement News  |  Advertise  |  Unsubscribe  |  Past Issues  |  Search

Employee Benefits Jobs

IRT Relationship Manager 3 - Core Market
for Wells Fargo in GA

401k Plan Administrator
for Ascensus in PA

Payroll and Benefits Manager
for Ascensus in PA

Compliance Manager
for Ascensus in PA

Year-End Services Consultant
for Ascensus in PA

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Webcasts and Conferences

Hourly Workforces and Health Care Reform - Angst or Opportunity? Webcast
Nationwide on September 13, 2012 presented by Mercer

Introduction to Cafeteria Plans Webinar
Nationwide on September 26, 2012 presented by WEB (Worldwide Employee Benefits Network)


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IRS Will Not Audit Individuals Over Individual Health Insurance Mandate
"The Internal Revenue Service on Tuesday assured congressional lawmakers that agents would play no role in enforcing the controversial requirement that Americans buy insurance under President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul. 'IRS revenue agents will not be involved. There will not be audits,' IRS Deputy Commissioner Steven Miller told a subcommittee of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives." (The New York Times; free registration required)


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Family Health Premiums Rise 4 Percent To Average $15,745 In 2012
"This year's premium increase is moderate by historical standards, but outpaced the growth in workers' wages (1.7 percent) and general inflation (2.3 percent). Since 2002, premiums have increased 97 percent, three times as fast as wages (33 percent) and inflation (28 percent).... Workers at lower-wage firms on average pay $1,000 more each year out of their paychecks for family coverage than workers at higher-wage firms ($4,977 and $3,968, respectively). This occurs even though the firms with many lower-wage workers on average pay less in total premiums for family coverage than firms with many higher-wage workers ($14,694 and $16,427, respectively)." (HealthAffairs Blog)

11th Circuit Suggests a 'Non-Voluntary' Wellness Program May Not Run Afoul of the ADA
"According to Brian Pinheiro, a partner and practice leader of the Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Group at Ballard Spahr in Philadelphia, the 11th Circuit's decision clearly suggests that at least in some circumstances, a 'non-voluntary' wellness program can be offered without running afoul of the ADA. 'It is significant and the first case of this kind at the appellate level,' Pinheiro says. 'The court said that if you have your wellness program as part of your standard health plan, you can fit this under a new exception that does not violate the ADA and doesn't require voluntariness.'" (Human Resource Executive Online)

Acknowledgment of Health Plan's Lien on Tort Recovery Did Not Require Attorney to Reimburse Plan (PDF)
"[The employer-sponsored health plan ("Drury")] is essentially attempting to impose personal, or legal, liability on [the employee's attorney ("Casey")] for the benefits it conferred on [the covered employee for his health care costs]. After receiving the settlement funds from [the employee's] personal injury law suit, Casey initially held in trust the $11,423.79 to which Drury claims an interest, but he eventually disbursed the entirety of that sum to [the employee, who subsequently filed for bankruptcy]. Casey thus no longer has any money to which Drury claims an interest." [Treasurer, Trustees of Drury Industries, Inc. Health Care Plan and Trust v. Gooding, No. 11-2885 (8th Cir. Sept. 7, 2012).] (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit)

Waste and Promise Seen in U.S. Health Care System
"The American medical system squanders 30 cents of every dollar spent on health care, according to new calculations by the respected Institute of Medicine. But in all that waste and misuse, policy experts and economists see a significant opportunity—a way to curb runaway health spending, to improve medical outcomes and even to put the economy on sounder footing." (The New York Times; free registration required)

The Average Employer Health Plan Now Costs $15,745, and That's Kind of Good News
"Workers' contributions to their health insurance premiums have grown by 180 percent since 1999. Earnings, meanwhile, have grown just a quarter as fast. The average health insurance plan offered by a large company now costs $15,745. That's the bad news. But there's also some good news buried in this report: Health insurance premiums rose by 4 percent between 2011 and 2012. That's not nothing, but it's a whole lot less than the double-digit premium increases that were common about a decade ago. In fact, since 2004, the Kaiser Family Foundation has not seen any double-digit increases at all. Just like national health expenditures, employer-based premiums are seeing a cost-growth slowdown." (The Washington Post; free registration required)

Why Health Insurance is About to Become More Costly
"The ObamaCare law requires the Department of Health and Human Services to establish 'essential health benefits' by looking at 'typical' employer plans. Unfortunately, the plans HHS intends to use as a guide are anything but typical. In its Essential Health Benefits Bulletin, the Department of Health and Human Services envisions a regulatory approach that will end up defining essential benefits as those that are 'substantially equal' to large employer plans." (John Goodman's Health Policy Blog)

Health Premiums Rise A Relatively Modest 4 Percent, Study Finds
"Health insurance premiums rose 4 percent for family coverage this year, well below last year's increase and half the 8 percent average of the previous decade—largely because people used less health care in an uncertain economy. Family plan premiums hit $15,745 on average, while premiums for single employees rose to $5,615, according to a survey of employers ... by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust." (Kaiser Health News)

Blue Cross Liable for Self-Dealing After Charging 'Hidden' Fees, District Court Rules
"Blue Cross began charging an administrative 'access fee' in the late 1980s to improve its financial situation. Blue Cross allegedly decided to hide the fee within hospital claims on employers' billing statements in 1993 after it lost customers that were unhappy with the new fees. Two Blue Cross customers sued in June 2011 after learning their billing statements included the 'hidden' fees. [The federal district judge] determined that Blue Cross acted as an [ERISA] fiduciary in its role as third-party administrator and engaged in self-dealing by unilaterally determining its administrative fees." (Bloomberg BNA)

Agencies Issue Guidance Addressing Full-Time Employees and Waiting Periods (PDF)
"Employers, particularly those that limit health plan eligibility to full-time employees and have a significant number of part-time employees, will have to implement additional administrative processes for tracking actual hours worked and for enrolling eligible employees or disenrolling ineligible employees. Employers should consider whether, under the terms of their plan, determining a worker's full-time-employee status would create an enrollment opportunity, and they should be aware of waiting period limitations, in addition to the application of other laws such as ERISA." (Buck Consultants)

Tax Practitioners Express Concern About ACA; Former IRS Commissioner Predicts 'Administrative Quagmire'
"Subcommittee Chairman Charles Boustany, Jr. (R-LA) claimed in his opening statement that the new tax rules and regulations created to implement these provisions 'will pose significant challenges to both individuals and job creators.' Attorney and former IRS commissioner and chief counsel Fred Goldberg, Jr. supported this claim, testifying that the ACA's revenue provisions 'will become a burdensome, costly, and administrative quagmire,' and lead to 'significant noncompliance' with the nation's tax laws.... Under questioning, Goldberg stated that one unintended consequence of the law is that employers will have 'significant incentives to discontinue group coverage.' Kathy Pickering, Executive Director of the Tax Institute at H&R Block, echoed this concern, and noted that tax preparers will 'face numerous challenges and significant demands.'" (Littler Mendelson LLC)

Eight Tips for Employees and Other Health Plan Participants During Open Enrollment Season
"Employers are making more changes than ever to their benefits plan designs and as a result employees need to take extra precautions to assure that they have the benefits coverage they expect, for a price they can afford, during this year's open enrollment period ... This is the time for employees, retirees and their families to consider all of their options, including health savings accounts and wellness programs, to make the most of their benefits while minimizing out of pocket costs for the year to come." (HighRoads)

District Court Holds That Michigan Tax on Benefit Payments is Not Preempted By ERISA
"The district court used a two-part test for determining whether a state law 'relates to' an ERISA plan—does the state law 'refer to' ERISA plans or does it have 'a connection with' ERISA plans. With respect to the first prong, the court interpreted the 'reference to' standard narrowly, and held that although the Act clearly referred to ERISA plans since it specifically mentioned them, reference alone was not sufficient, and the statute must also impose an impermissible burdensome effect on ERISA plans. The court determined that there was no impermissible burden on ERISA plans because the Act did not single them out for treatment different from other entities that pay health care claims for Michigan citizens receiving medical care in Michigan. With respect to the second prong of the 'relates to' test, the district court noted that a state statute has a 'connection with' ERISA plans if it mandates (or effectively mandates) something, and if that mandate falls within the area that Congress intended ERISA to control exclusively." (Faegre Baker Daniels)

2012 Annual Rate Review Report: Rate Review Saves Estimated $1 Billion for Consumers
"This report examines several key impacts of the Rate Review Program, including: 1) lowering rate increases and saving consumers money; 2) increasing transparency in the insurance market; and, 3) enhancing state rate review programs.... Of the determinations to date, fifty percent have resulted in consumers receiving either a lower rate increase than requested or no increase at all. Twelve percent of submissions were withdrawn prior to determination, in part because some insurers were not willing to have their proposed rate increase labeled as 'unreasonable.'" (Healthcare.gov)

[Opinion]

Why Is the ObamaCare Tax/Penalty Needed at All?
"Large employers who offer multiple health plans to their employees provide protection against becoming uninsurable or facing dramatic premium increases, and many also offer a choice of plans, but only as long as the employee remains with the firm or until the employee's COBRA benefits run out. If a product offering this type of 'long-term' risk protection plus a choice of health plans were offered to all consumers, one would expect them to show up in droves. So all the government really needed to do was to facilitate the offering of such long-term protection, sit back, and watch consumers currently in both the individual and group insurance markets line up and sign up." (The American Magazine)

[Opinion]

Text of Testimony Before House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee on IRS Implementation of ACA (PDF)
"The [ACA] is a large and complex statute, involving many new responsibilities for employers and other stakeholders. Given that reality, the U.S. Treasury Department and [IRS] have, overall, done a commendable job helping employers and others understand and comply with the law's requirements ... The IRS has also generally been willing to address concerns of broad applicability quickly through the issuance of various forms of sub-regulatory guidance, such as [FAQs], Notices and the like. The use of sub-regulatory guidance can in some respects be a mixed blessing. It facilitates the issuance of important guidance in a timely fashion, but may not allow for meaningful public comment. Significantly, unlike in the months that initially followed enactment of the ACA, where the use of sub-regulatory guidance by the agencies was fairly common, the IRS appears to be using sub-regulatory guidance at this time more to frame issues for future rulemaking or to clarify more formal guidance that has already been the subject of significant public comment." (American Benefits Council, ERISA Industry Committee, and Society of Human Resource Management)

Benefits in General; Executive Compensation

Companies Beef Up Retirement Plans for Top Executives
"WITH traditional pensions disappearing, tax rates and the future of Social Security in flux and even well-known businesses facing financial trouble, many workers are worried that their company retirement plans will not provide enough income. But for the upper tier of executives, these trends could actually lead to richer corporate perks as management moves to compensate for the uncertainties. Companies are rethinking their special programs of executive retirement benefits by expanding the eligibility pool, adding investment choices, increasing their corporate contributions and even designing entirely new structures -- all in an effort to keep top executives happy." (The New York Times; free registration required)

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