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Hand-picked links to the web's best news articles, official guidance, jobs, webcasts and more.
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[Guidance Overview]
How Will The ACA Impact Your Service Contract Act Compliance?
"Government contractors who use a cash-in-lieu approach for their [Service Contract Act (SCA)] employees may find it costs more than they expect to satisfy the ACA's 'affordability' requirement since the cash-in-lieu payments do not count as employer-provided health coverage under the ACA. Although the cash-in-lieu payments satisfy the employer's fringe benefit obligations under the SCA, no similar credit is given to the employer for such payments under the ACA. Moreover, whatever portion of a cash-in-lieu payment is applied to pay the premium cost for employer-provided group health coverage will count as an employee cost, not employer cost. As a result, government contractors could face significantly increased costs unless they reconsider the popular cash-in-lieu approach to fringe benefits."
(McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP)
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[Guidance Overview]
IRS Explains How to Preserve HSA Eligibility for Individuals with Health FSA Carryovers
"This particular memorandum offers urgently needed guidance on the options available to employers who want to offer health FSA carryovers while helping employees preserve their HSA eligibility and confirms informal remarks previously made by agency officials. With this guidance in hand, some employers that postponed adding carryovers may now decide they know enough to add carryovers to their plans. Note that there are still some open issues regarding carryovers, and that the options for preserving HSA eligibility when carryovers are offered differ from those that are available when the plan provides for a health FSA grace period."
(Thomson Reuters / EBIA)
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HHS Announces Self-Assessment Tool for HIPAA Security Compliance
"Although HHS designed the [Security Risk Assessment (SRA)] Tool for small to medium health care practices, it can be a helpful resource for all covered entities -- and business associates, which are now directly responsible for HIPAA security compliance ... [T]he SRA Tool may provide a useful analytical template. And although the tool's questions might seem overwhelming, conducting a security risk assessment is a fundamental first step to compliance: It determines how a covered entity or business associate will implement HIPAA's security standards."
(Thomson Reuters / EBIA)
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Ezekiel Emanuel Further Explains His Prediction That Employers Will Drop Health Insurance
"[T]he assumption, behind my claim is that the exchanges are going to get better, that they're going to be desirable shopping places, the options are going to be highly desirable, there's going to be more choice for people. If the products available on the exchange are not equivalent to what responsible large private employers are doing, they're not going to send their workers there. It's just that simple."
(The New York Times; free registration required)
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House Approves 40-Hour Definition of Full-Time Employee
"The House has approved legislation to define a full-time employee under the [ACA] as an employee who works, on average, 40 hours per week. The Save American Workers Act (H.R. 2575 ) was approved by a vote of 248-179. Senate action on the bill is unclear, and the White House has issued a veto warning."
(Towers Watson)
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Workplace Flexibility Still a Pipe Dream for Most
"[R]ecent data ... shows flexible arrangements aren't being offered to most employees, and finds employers' flexible-work options are too limited in scope and type to be effective.... What's more, when flexibility is made available, it's usually designed to enable employees to move their work in time or location, but not to reduce work expectations or provide temporary leaves from jobs -- additional adjustments experts say are needed to fill out the entire option menu and truly meet the needs of today's more mobile, knowledge-based employees."
(Human Resource Executive Online)
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Uninsured Rate in U.S. Is Lowest Since 2008
"The uninsured rate has been falling since the fourth quarter of 2013, after hitting an all-time high of 18.0% in the third quarter -- a sign that the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as 'Obamacare,' appears to be accomplishing its goal of increasing the percentage of Americans with health insurance coverage. Even within this year's first quarter, the uninsured rate fell consistently, from 16.2% in January to 15.6% in February to 15.0% in March. And within March, the rate dropped more than a point, from 15.8% in the first half of the month to 14.7% in the second half -- indicating that enrollment through the healthcare exchanges increased as the March 31 deadline approached."
(Gallup)
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Even the Healthy Locked Out of 2014 Policies Now
"With limited exceptions, insurance companies have stopped selling until next year the sorts of individual plans that used to be available year-round. That locks out many of the young and healthy as well as the sick and injured, even those who can afford to buy without government subsidies.... The next wide-open chance to sign up comes in November, when enrollment for 2015 begins in the government-run insurance marketplaces created by the health care law. Companies are following that schedule even for the plans they sell outside the federal and state exchanges."
(Associated Press)
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Surprise Medical Bills Lead to Patient Protection Laws in New York
"New York this week extended patient protection laws to restrict out-of-network providers from 'balance-billing' consumers for emergency care or when patients can't choose their doctors. Balance-billing occurs when health workers who don't accept a patient's insurance try to collect the difference between their charge and the insurer's reimbursement.... Patients most often receive these surprise bills in emergency cases, when they can't choose the doctors who treat them."
(Bloomberg)
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Waiting for Healthcare in Canada Costs $1,200 Per Patient
"Every legal resident of Canada is entitled to 'free' taxpayer-funded medical and hospital care. They just have to wait a long time to get it.... The estimated cost of waiting for care in Canada for patients who were in the queue in 2013 was $1.1 billion -- an average of about $1,202 for each of the estimated 928,120 Canadians waiting for treatment in 2013. The estimate is conservative; it assumes that only those hours during the average work week should be counted as lost and places no intrinsic value on the time individuals spend waiting in a reduced capacity outside of the work week."
(John Goodman's Health Policy Blog)
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[Opinion]
Hooray! The Medicare Doc Fix is Fixed Until Next April!
"According to the [CBO's] score of the bill, it increases Medicare's physician payments by $15.8 billion over ten years. However, $11.2 billion (71 percent) is spent by 2015, and $13.3 billion (84 percent) is spent by 2016. The savings to pay for this? Those come later, much later: Savings don't become greater than spending until 2020, and not significant until 2024 -- the last year of the mandated scoring 'window', when the law is supposed to claw back $9.3 billion from hospitals and re-impose the sequester on Medicare."
(John Goodman's Health Policy Blog)
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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Employer-Sponsored Benefits Extended to Domestic Partners: Beyond the Numbers
"In March 2013, 72 percent of civilian workers had access to employment-based health benefits, and nearly all had such benefits extended to married spouses and children.... 32 percent of workers had access to health benefits that could be extended to unmarried same-sex partners and 26 percent had access that could be extended to opposite-sex partners.... In March 2013, 28 percent of civilian workers had access to a defined-benefit pension plan. All of these workers could extend survivor benefits to a spouse. In contrast, 15 percent of workers had access to a defined-benefit plan that allowed the employee to designate a same-sex domestic partner as the beneficiary of survivor benefits. Similarly, 14 percent of workers had access to a plan that provided survivor benefits to opposite-sex unmarried employees."
(U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
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CEO Pay Up 7% for Early Filers
"CEO total compensation among 100 early proxy filers grew 7% in 2013 to a median $6.7 million.... Median base salary was $988,000, up 3%. Bonus payouts, a barometer of annual performance, increased 4% to a median $1.4 million. Long-term incentive awards increased 5% to a median $3.9 million."
(Steven Hall & Partners)
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Definition of 'Substantial Risk of Forfeiture' Gets Murky?
"Compensatory agreements often include a definition of Cause that will result in forfeiture in some or all of a benefit. Moreover, the Internal Revenue Code uses the same phrase ('substantial risk of forfeiture') in several different Code sections, albeit with different definitions. It is too early to overreact either way to the Austin decision, but there are a number of issues worth considering: [1] Are we applying tax on restricted stock too early and should we be using Section 83(b) elections more often? [2] Are we including FICA taxes and compensation expense on deferred compensation on RSUs too early? [3] Does the Austin decision have any effect on Section 409A, where the notion of SRFs plays an essential role in many important respects?" [Austin v. Comm., Nos. 8966-10, 8967-10 (T.C. Dec. 16, 2013)]
(Winston & Strawn LLP)
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