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September 14, 2012 Get Retirement News  |  Advertise  |  Unsubscribe  |  Past Issues  |  Search

Employee Benefits Jobs

Benefits Specialist
for BTHR Solutions in LA

Retirement Planning Consultant
for Diversified in MI

Senior Benefits Consultant
for NextEra Energy/Florida Power & Light in FL

Staff Attorney
for State of South Dakota, Bureau of Human Resources in SD

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
for Taft-Hartley Benefit Fund in NY

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[Guidance Overview]

IRS Provides Guidance of Full-Time Employee Definition Under ACA and Waiting Period Requirements
"For ongoing employees, employers may choose to use a safe harbor method based on a standard measurement period and a stability period to determine whether an employee who has been employed for at least one standard measurement period (an ongoing employee) is or is not a fulltime employee.... Employers who decide to use a 12-month measurement and stability period would need to start counting employees and hours by next month in order to be ready to offer coverage to full-time employees during the 2014 stability period." (PricewaterhouseCoopers)


[Advert.]

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How High Can They Go? Annual Premiums for Job-Based Family Health Plans Hit $15,745, Up 4%
"The Kaiser survey showed premiums for job-based family coverage have risen by nearly $2,400 since 2009 when Obama took office, with a corresponding increase of nearly $800 for employee-only coverage." (The Washington Post; free registration required)

The New Census Numbers: Some Good News, But Major Challenges Remain
"The one genuinely bright spot in the Census Bureau report ... is the reversal of two worrisome trends: the steady increase in the number of uninsured and the steady drop in the number of people insured through work. Both trends reversed in 2011. With the admittedly modest bounce in employment from recession lows, employment-based coverage increased, even as the proportion insured through work continued its decade-long slide. For adults in the prime working ages, 25 through 54, the drop in employer-sponsored coverage has been large: from 73.8 percent in 2000 to 61.8 percent in 2011." (Brookings)

[Opinion]

Here We Go Again
"Forty years ago, after the adoption of Medicare and Medicaid, health care spending was rising at alarming rates. Federal spending, especially, soared from $2.9 billion in 1965 to $17.7 billion just five years later, this was 29% of the total spent on health care. The annual rate of growth of health care spending exceeded 12% in each of the four years ending in 1971, while annual GDP growth varied between 6% and 8% during the same time.... This panic provided the rationale for a whole series of dramatic remedies ... None of these massive interventions worked to do what they promised—hold down the rise in health care costs." (John Goodman's Health Policy Blog)

[Opinion]

Solutions for CalPERS Health Insurance Rate Hikes
"The California Public Employees' Retirement System recently raised health insurance premiums for nearly 1.3 million workers and retirees an average of 9.6 percent for 2013, more than three times the rate of general inflation over the past year. The rate hikes include 8.7 percent increases for basic health maintenance organization coverage and 13.9 percent increases for basic preferred provider organization (PPO) plans.... CalPERS says it has introduced a number of initiatives in recent years to help stabilize rates, but none of these initiatives has included the one strategy proven to 'bend the cost curve' down—consumer-driven health plans." (Orange County Register)

[Opinion]

This Is Not How We Should Save Money on Health Care
"When it comes to health insurance, employees increasingly have to choose between health-insurance policies with sky-high premiums or with sky-high co-payments and deductibles. And since they can't afford the former they're opting for the big co-payments and deductibles—or no insurance at all. The result is fewer visits to the doctor and less use of other medical services. This is a new trend, and it comes despite the Affordable Care Act (which hasn't been fully phased in). And it wouldn't be worrisome if we were seeing too much of doctors before, and using up medical resources we didn't need. But it's worrisome if it means less preventive care, or health problems going untreated until they become chronic illnesses or crises." (Business Insider)

[Opinion]

Text of Testimony before House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee on Implementation of Health Insurance Exchanges and Related Provisions
"[The National Retail Federation is ] greatly concerned by delays in issuing regulations, agency reliance on temporary guidance rather than formal regulations, and the fast-approaching deadlines for key issues affecting coverage in every market. Our nation cannot afford for the ACA to stumble out of the starting gate, especially as to health insurance exchanges, a key ACA element important to both employers and individuals. We fear that as time diminishes between now and January 2014, a cascade of last minute regulations will create confusion and thus could encourage more employers to back out of coverage." (National Retail Federation)

Latest Health Care Reform Updates
Summary of recent developments and upcoming deadlines; articles include: Temporary Guidance Issued on 90-Day Waiting Period Limit; Guidance on Identifying Full-Time Employees for the "Pay or Play" Mandate; Contraceptive Mandate Safe Harbor for Religiously-Affiliated Non-Profits Is Expanded. (McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP)

Benefits in General; Executive Compensation

The Sixth Circuit's Affirmance of Quality Stores Splits the Circuits as to the FICA Tax Treatment of Severance Pay
"This split between the Sixth Circuit and the Federal Circuit over the FICA tax treatment of SUB pay is based, largely, on differences in each court's view of whether and how section 3402(o) of the Internal Revenue Code—the provision requiring income tax withholding on SUB payments as if they were 'wages'—should be applied for FICA tax purposes when the Code is actually silent on the issue of FICA tax treatment." (Miller & Chevalier Chartered)

CEOs Extend Pay Gap Over Finance Chiefs
"When it comes to base salary, there is an interesting distinction within the S&P 500 between the 100 largest companies and the 'Other 400' ... CFOs in the former group are steadily falling away from their bosses, with the salary ratio declining from 54.7% in 2009, to 52.1% in 2010, to 50.7% in 2011. Within the Other 400, the opposite is true. CFO salary compared to CEO salary has climbed from 50% in 2009, to 51.5% in 2010, to 54.2% in 2011." (CFO)

Press Releases

New Board Members, Officers Announced by IRI
Insured Retirement Institute (IRI)



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