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June 6, 2014          Get Retirement News  |  Advertise
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Employee Benefits Jobs

Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits Associate
Baker & McKenzie
in CA

Pension Software Sales
DATAIR Employee Benefit Systems, Inc.
in IL

Experienced Plan Administrator
My Benefits, LLC
in GA, OH

Regulatory Service Analyst
OneAmerica Financial Partners, Inc
in IN

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Webcasts and Conferences

Proactive Preparation for Health Reform's Employer Shared Responsibility Penalty: 2014 Decisions Will Impact 2015 Liabilities
June 18, 2014 WEBCAST
(Winstead PC)

Let's Talk ESOPs
June 19, 2014 in ID
(ESOP Association)

Qualified Health Plan (QHP) Series - “Office Hours” General Q&A
June 24, 2014 WEBCAST
(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS))

Federally-facilitated Small Business Health Options Program (FF-SHOP) Series III - Update and Issuer Q&A
July 1, 2014 WEBCAST
(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS))

2014 National Conference
September 15, 2014 in FL
(PSCA [Plan Sponsor Council of America])

View All Webcasts and Conferences


  LinkedIn   Twitter   Facebook Hand-picked links to the web's best news articles,
official guidance, jobs, webcasts and more.
[Guidance Overview]

Changes to COBRA Notices and New Limited Special Enrollment Period
"The new transition rule applies to federally facilitated Marketplaces, although HHS is encouraging state-run Marketplaces to adopt a similar rule.... [C]ommunications should address the impact on dental and vision continuation coverage if medical continuation coverage is dropped. Similarly, if the employer subsidizes the participant's share of the COBRA premium (e.g., during a severance period), the loss of the COBRA premium subsidy does not trigger a Marketplace special enrollment right and affected participants should be made aware of this." (Drinker Biddle)  


[Advert.]

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University Gets It Right When It Says, 'Enough Is Enough': Tenth Circuit Upholds Inflexible Leave Policy
"[T]he court held there is nothing inherently discriminatory about an inflexible leave policy, in fact, so long as the leave time is not unreasonably short, such policies can protect the rights of the disabled employees, by making sure they are not singled out.... The EEOC still frowns upon inflexible leave policies; therefore, it would still be wise for employers to go through the interactive process to determine how much additional leave is required and whether the additional requested leave would be unreasonable under the circumstances." [Hwang v. Kansas State Univ., No. 13-3070 (10th Cir. May 29, 2014)] (Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP)  

Administration Overhauls HealthCare.gov Web Site
"Among the changes in the new version of HealthCare.gov: a revamp of the site's consumer-facing portion including the application for coverage most people will use, as well as the comparison tool that lets them shop for plans ... The government is turning to cloud computing from Amazon.com Inc.'s Web Services unit to host many of these functions." (The Wall Street Journal; subscription may be required)  

CBO Update on Payments of Penalties for Being Uninsured Under the ACA
"All told, CBO and JCT estimate that about 4 million people will pay a penalty because they are uninsured in 2016 (a figure that includes uninsured dependents who have the penalty paid on their behalf). An estimated $4 billion will be collected from those who are uninsured in 2016, and, on average, an estimated $5 billion will be collected per year over the 2017-2024 period.... Those estimates differ from projections that CBO and JCT made in September 2012 ... About 2 million fewer people are now projected to pay the penalty for being uninsured in 2016, and collections are now expected to be about $3 billion less for that year." (Congressional Budget Office)  

ACA Results: Who are the Newly Insured as of March 2014?
"Most of the newly insured adults are in the income groups targeted by the ACA's Medicaid expansion and the health insurance Marketplaces.... The newly insured adults tend to be younger than adults who had coverage for the full year (50.4 percent versus 33.0 percent under age 35) ... [and] often lack a strong connection to the health care system; more than a third (35.7 percent) did not have a usual source of care[.]" (Urban Institute Health Policy Center)  


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Effects of Implementing State Insurance Market Reform, 2011-2012 (PDF)
Dated June 7, 2013; published on HHS website June 5, 2014. Excerpt: "[P]remium increases slowed substantially since the time that ACA rate regulations went into effect in 2011 ... In the Individual market, premium increases fell from 11.7 percent in 2010 to 7.1 percent in 2012. In the small group market, premium increases declined from 8.8 percent in 2010 to 4.8 percent in 2012. In both the individual and small group markets, premium increases for each post-rate review period were lower than for any pre-rate review period." (NORC at the University of Chicago, prepared for the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)  

Trends in Premiums in the Small Group and Individual Insurance Markets, 2008-2011 (PDF)
Dated November 6, 2012; published on HHS website June 5, 2014. Excerpt: "[In] the first year of premium and MLR review under the [ACA], regulators modified and disapproved a higher percentage of requested premium increases than they did in the three years prior to the [ACA]. Premium increases fell by 2.9 percentage points in the individual market and 2.1 percentage points in the small group market.... [T]he study's methods do not enable us to assert that the ACA is responsible for the decline in premium increases from 2010-2011." (NORC at the University of Chicago, prepared for the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)  

[Opinion]

The Harsh Reality of the ACA's Health Insurance Tax
"The tax, which begins at $8 billion this year, will increase by 41% to $11.3 billion in 2015. In total, the tax will add up to $100 billion over the next decade, resulting in higher premiums for American families." (America's Health Insurance Plans [AHIP])  

[Opinion]

Is Healthcare.gov Poised to Become the Only Exchange?
"The federal option was supposed to be a limited and temporary fallback. But a shift to a bigger, more permanent Washington-controlled system is instead underway -- without preparation, funding or even public discussion about what a national exchange covering millions of Americans means for the future of U.S. health care." (Politico)  

Press Releases

NAGDCA RFP - Research Paper on the Future of Retirement
National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators

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