[Guidance Overview]
DOL Supports Barring Low Stop-loss Attachment Points
"DOL gave credence to the view that self-funding by smaller companies poses a threat to health care reform.... The National Association of Insurance Commissioners adopted a model law that prohibits attachment points with specific attachment points below $20,000. States may typically use NAIC models as templates for their own legislation. It is DOL's position that such laws should not be invalidated as a result of ERISA preemption."
(Thompson SmartHR Manager)
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Supreme Court Justices Dust Off Contracts Treatises for Dispute Over Retiree Health Benefit Vesting
"The Justices on [November 10] spent the argument convincing themselves that this case is nothing but a dispute about contract interpretation, with the only issue left for decision what would seem to be an unimportant detail of applying ordinary precepts of interpretation to this particular set of contracts. A closer look, however, suggests that the Justices' discussion involves a little more than that."
(SCOTUSblog)
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Insights for Improvement: Data and Analysis from the 2014 Inside Benefits Communication Survey (PDF)
19 pages. "Professionals spent the most time during the last year working to improve employees' understanding and perceived value of benefits (56%). Time dedicated to lowering overall health plan costs was second (47%), followed by maintaining overall compliance (47%).... [K]eeping employees and families engaged in their benefits year-round is their largest communications challenge (75%). That percentage is essentially unchanged since ... 2012. However, the lack of engagement could be linked to a lack of frequency, since the majority (64%) also say they only communicate with employees once a year at annual enrollment." [Infographic also available.]
(Benz Communications and National Business Coalition on Health)
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EEOC Challenges Some Employer Wellness Programs
"The EEOC's primary concern seems to be how wellness program incentives will impact people with disabilities and whether the wellness program affects people within particular protected classes under the ADA. If a wellness program neither asks for an employee's medical information nor requires medical exams, it seems relatively clear that the ADA is unlikely to be implicated and the EEOC would have no reason to challenge the wellness program under that law. However, the EEOC's complaints leave employers with a number of unanswered questions[.]"
(Towers Watson)
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Visualizing Health Policy: Recent Trends in Employer-Sponsored Insurance
"[This] infographic takes a look at recent trends in employer-sponsored insurance, including average premium increases for workers with family coverage, the average yearly cost of premiums for single and family coverage and how those costs have increased in the past decade, along with the prevalence of health promotion programs (such as wellness programs) offered by large firms. It also looks at differences in premium and worker contributions at firms with many lower-wage workers and firms with many higher-wage workers; the average general annual deductible for workers who face a deductible for single coverage; and the percentage of workers covered by employers' health benefits at offering and non-offering firms, from 2000 to 2014."
(Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation)
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Obamacare Delay Provides Relief -- and an Opportunity
"The most recent health-reform implementation roadblock involves a tool the feds created to help employers with administration issues. But problems with that very tool directly led to a delay that benefits employers.... If your company offers a skinny or low-cost health plan that fails to meet the health reform law's 'minimum value' test, you have an extra year before you'll face any penalties."
(HR Benefits Alert)
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Text of 2015 Work Plan, HHS Office of Inspector General: ACA Reviews (PDF)
"OIG's ongoing and planned reviews for fiscal year 2015 will assess the Department's implementation and operation of ACA programs and progress toward achieving program goals. To this end, we are prioritizing work in three main areas: the health insurance marketplaces, including financial assistance payments; Medicare and Medicaid reforms; and grant expenditures for public health programs."
(Office of Inspector General [OIG], U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS])
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New HHS 2015 Marketplace Enrollment Estimates
"[The HHS Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation] estimates that 5.9 million of these 7.1 million individuals will reenroll for 2015. This figure is surely too low. It is based on retention rates in similar programs and the experience of a major insurer. But both reenrollment and eligibility redetermination will be automatic for marketplace enrollees. Any enrollees who could not afford coverage have probably already dropped it."
(Health Affairs)
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How States Could Avert a Supreme Court Obamacare Disaster
"States looking to take ownership of their marketplace would have to establish a legal authority for operating the marketplace; detail a plan to the feds how they'd make sure it works; and set up a governing body to oversee the marketplace.... [T]he state-run exchanges have to handle certain functions like overseeing health plans and consumer outreach, but they could still rely on HealthCare.gov for enrollment -- which means states wouldn't have to bear the major cost of setting up that technical infrastructure."
(The Washington Post; subscription may be required)
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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2014 Pension and OPEB Assumption and Disclosure Survey (PDF)
"Median [pension] plan funding levels increased significantly since 2012, with pension plan assets equal to approximately 90% of the projected benefit obligation in 2013 as compared to 77% in 2012. In 2007 the median funding percentage was 100%.... The percentage of companies whose OPEB plans are funded has changed slightly with 52% of plans being funded in 2013 compared to 51% of plans being funded in 2012 and 57% being funded in 2007. Unlike pensions, OPEB plan funding levels (assets as a percentage of accumulated postretirement benefit obligations) have not decreased significantly."
(PricewaterhouseCoopers)
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2014 Wells Fargo Nonqualified Plan Benchmarking Survey (PDF)
"Most plan sponsors experience challenges with employee education and employees' appreciation of the plan, an important part of making the plan a success. Nearly one-half of all companies cited recordkeeping problems, including processing errors and service difficulties. Recordkeeping flexibility and dedicated nonqualified plan expertise are among the top selection criteria for nonqualified plan providers."
(Wells Fargo)
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What Companies Should Be Doing Now to Get Ready for the 2015 Proxy Season (Part 2)
"[L]imiting the pay-for-performance discussion in the proxy statement to boilerplate statements like 'our programs are designed to pay for performance' will no longer suffice.... One key is to use clear and consistent definitions so that pay for performance can be reviewed annually with a consistent methodology.... [A] holistic approach based on a variety of perspectives best supports effective disclosure and the broader shareholder engagement process."
(Towers Watson)
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Press Releases
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