Employee Benefits Jobs
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Webcasts and Conferences
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Hand-picked links to the web's best news articles, official guidance, jobs, webcasts and more.
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Text of HHS Report on Medical Loss Ratio Reimbursements for 2013 Health Insurance Premiums (PDF)
"In the first three years of the MLR program, individual and employer plan enrollees received or will receive over $1.9 billion in refunds. In this year alone, 6.8 million consumers across all states and markets will receive over $330 million in refunds, with an average refund value of $80 per family. Health insurance companies are required to provide the 2013 refunds by August 1, 2014 in one of the following ways: as a check in the mail; a reimbursement to the account that was used to pay the premium; a direct reduction in their future premiums; or, if the consumer bought insurance through their employer, the employer must provide the refund in one of these three ways or apply the refund in a manner that benefits its employees."
(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS], U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS])
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UnitedHealthcare Ups the Ante on Price, Provider Shopping
"The nation's largest health insurer is making its free mobile app available to everyone, in a bid to move the needle on price transparency. Anyone, not members, can now use UnitedHealthcare's free and recently-updated mobile application, Health4Me. The mobile app, available in iTunes and Android and downloaded by more than 900,000 members, offers individuals the ability to locate nearby hospitals, emergency rooms and urgent care facilities and review average local prices for 520 services across 290 episodes of care, with a cost estimator based on tests and treatments."
(Healthcare Payer News)
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U.S. Health Insurers to Pay $330 Million in Premium Rebates
"The rebates will go to about 6.8 million people and have a value of about $80 per family. They are to be sent by Aug. 1 either directly to consumers or to the employer providing the health coverage, who is required to pass the savings onto employees ... The total rebate figure is less than last year, when the insurers were told to send out $500 million under the law. The decline is a trend that the government said shows that more insurers are charging lower premiums than they would have if the law was not passed."
(Reuters)
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Business Groups, Consumer Advocates Draw Lines in the Sand Over Essential Benefits
"The essential health benefits (EHBs) countdown is on for 2016. That's when this provision of the [ACA], which sets out 10 specific health services that must be covered by plans sold on the exchanges, will likely be reviewed by [HHS]. Business interests and consumer advocates are already making their positions clear -- the former pushing for greater consciousness of premium costs and the latter looking to safeguard consumers' coverage."
(Kaiser Health News)
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Survey of Business Conditions Reveals Impacts of ACA on CFO Business Strategies (PDF)
"Only 18% of CFOs say their companies have changed their staffing model/headcount management as a direct result of ACA.... [A] slim plurality (43%) say employee out-of-pocket expenses are up (versus 39% stayed the same) and just 33% said employee contribution percentages are increasing (versus 47% reporting they stayed the same).... [I]nsured arrangements are the most prevalent, with exchanges being the least. Responses indicated a sizable shift for both -- with insured arrangements dropping and the use of exchanges increasing (from 6% to 15% in 3 years)."
(Tatum)
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A Tale of Two Decisions: Circuit Courts Divided on ACA Tax Credits
"Employer pay or play penalties are triggered by one or more full-time employees receiving a subsidy for the purchase of insurance in a Marketplace. Therefore, the negation of subsidies in states with federally-facilitated Marketplaces would greatly diminish employers' exposure to pay or play penalties. However, employers should continue to prepare for exposure to pay or play penalties in all states in which they have employees (including those states with federally-facilitated Marketplaces) while continuing to monitor developments."
(Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP)
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Appeals Courts Issue Conflicting Rulings on ACA Premium Subsidies (PDF)
"In addition to [the Halbig and King decisions], two other federal District Court cases are pending: Pruitt v. Sebelius in Oklahoma City, OK. [and] Indiana v. IRS in Indianapolis, IN. Ultimately, the issue of whether
premium subsidies are available through federally facilitated may not be resolved until after the open enrollment period for 2015 (November 15, 2014 - February 15, 2015), which could mean considerable uncertainty for prospective enrollees relying on the availability of premium tax credits to pay for Exchange plan coverage."
(Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, for Employers Council on Flexible Compensation [ECFC])
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Health Reform and Changes in Health Insurance Coverage in 2014
"The uninsured rate was 21.0% in September 2013, right before the beginning of the open-enrollment period, and it fell to 16.3% in April 2014.... As compared with the baseline trend, the uninsured rate declined by 5.2 percentage points by the second quarter of 2014, a 26% relative decline from the 2012-2013 period.... [T]his corresponds to 10.3 million adults gaining coverage, although depending on the model and confidence intervals, our sensitivity analyses imply a wide range from 7.3 to 17.2 million adults."
(New England Journal of Medicine)
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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Employee Benefits: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
"This Issue Brief summarizes the presentations and discussions at EBRI's 73rd policy forum held in Washington, DC, on Dec. 12, 2013.... [T]he symposium offered expert perspectives on not only the workplace and work force of the past, but the challenges of today's multi-generational workplace, and the difficulties and opportunities that lie ahead. Following a review of the benefits landscape by EBRI's research team, panels discussed: [1] 1978 to 2013: The Changing Role of Employers in Employee Benefits; [2] Employee Benefits from 2013 to 2048: The Road to Tomorrow; [3] 2013 to 2048: Work Force Trends and Preferences, Today and Tomorrow."
(Employee Benefit Research Institute [EBRI])
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Fifth Circuit Holds Deferred Comp Plan Was Governed by ERISA
"The court explained that the [plan] was not a 'bonus program' but rather was a self-described 'deferred compensation plan,' and, thus, the DOL regulation was inapplicable. The court did not address the undisputed fact that the [plan] was the exclusive vehicle through which RBC paid financial advisors annual performance bonuses.... [This] decision has important implications for employers -- particularly in the financial services industry -- that use deferred compensation arrangements with an understanding that the particular arrangement does not constitute an ERISA-governed pension plan. The decision also indicates that the DOL's 'bonus program' regulation does not apply to plans that provide bonuses alongside other forms of deferred compensation." [Tolbert v. RBC Capital Markets Corporation, No. 13-20213 (5th Cir. July 14, 2014)]
(Morgan Lewis)
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Press Releases
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