Account Manager
National Retirement Services, Inc.
in NC

Compliance Analyst
National Retirement Services, Inc.
in NC

DC Retirement Plan Account Manager
Pentegra Retirement Services
in SC

Director, Insurance Services
Children's Hospital Association
in KS

Client Service Manager
The Newport Group
in FL, NC, WI

Qualified Retirement Plan Administrator
PlanTech, LLP
in ANY STATE, AL

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Identifying Common-Law Employees: Implications for Employer Group Health Plans
RECORDED
(Thomson Reuters / EBIA)

Health Plan Blueprint: Managing Change Through Innovation in the Age of the Customer
February 12, 2015 WEBCAST
(Benefitfocus)

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[Guidance Overview]

New Proposed Regs on Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC) (PDF)
"Employers are not required to provide SBCs for the following types of coverage: [1] Any HIPAA-excepted benefits, which includes most medical FSAs, qualifying dental and vision coverage and most employee assistance plans (EAPs); [2] Expatriate plans; [3] Health savings accounts (HSAs). Health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) are considered self-funded medical plans. An SBC must be provided for an HRA. However, employers could have a single SBC for the comprehensive medical plan that includes information about the HRA within the scope of that SBC." (McGraw Wentworth)  

[Advert.]

On-Site Employee Health Clinics Summit – Mar 11-12 2015 – Atlanta

Case studies and strategies from innovative employers to leverage on-site clinics to drive down health costs and increase employee health care accountability through quality care in a convenient setting.

[Guidance Overview]

Massachusetts Extends Parental Leave Rights to Men (PDF)
"The new gender-neutral law, which takes effect on April 7, 2015, will extend the right to job-protected leave for the birth or adoption of a child to male and female employees alike." (Buck Consultants at Xerox)  

[Guidance Overview]

Beyond HIPAA: New Jersey Law Requires Encryption of Personal Data by Health Insurance Carriers
"Although New Jersey already has a law requiring notification to individuals in the event of a data breach of their personal information, the new law is aimed at preventing breaches in the first place and further reducing the risks of misappropriation and identity theft. In addition, while HIPAA mandates the protection of personal information, HIPAA suggests encryption only when sufficient risk is identified and encryption is reasonable. New Jersey's new law goes a step further by mandating that all computerized data be rendered 'unreadable, undecipherable, or otherwise unusable by an unauthorized person.' " (Epstein Becker Green)  

Tackett Decision Opens Door for Review and Modification of Collectively Bargained Retiree Benefits
"[I]nasmuch as [FASB 106] has required employers to account for retiree welfare benefits as either an expense on the employer's income statement or by amortization of the liability on a straight line basis since 1992, for which the aggregate impact on employers is in the billions of dollars, Tackett's significance will be felt in three ways: [1] Rust-belt company balance sheets could improve significantly. [2] Employers could terminate or modify union retiree plans, e.g., by charging premiums and increasing co-payments. [3] Future union negotiations of retiree welfare benefits are likely to be even more contentious." (Thompson Hine)  

Key Supreme Court Case Leaves Many Union Retiree Health Care Benefits Up in the Air
"The case will have far-reaching effects, since many agreements that were drawn up in the 1960s and 1970s didn't directly place limitations on the provision of health care benefits, according to Ronald Mann, a professor at Columbia Law School. He had estimated that as many as 40% to 50% of collective-bargaining agreements are unclear on providing vested health care benefits." (InvestmentNews)  

Collectively Bargained Retiree Medical Benefits No Longer Presumed Vested in the Sixth Circuit
"The critical take away here is that HR departments and employee benefits types, including ERISA attorneys, need to work closely with the labor attorneys and parties negotiating the collective bargaining agreements regarding the contents of such agreements and to preserve documentation of the intent behind the collective bargaining agreements." (Winstead PC)  

Who Maxes Out on Health Savings Accounts? (PDF)
"Overall, 15 percent of all accounts had received the maximum contribution.... HSAs with employer contributions were less likely than those without employer contributions to receive the maximum contribution. In 2013, 14 percent of HSAs with an employer contribution received the maximum contribution, compared with 20 percent of accounts without an employer contribution. Accounts belonging to individuals with distributions from their HSA for claims were more likely than those without such distributions to have received the maximum contribution in 2013." (Employee Benefit Research Institute [EBRI])  

State-Level Trends in Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance (PDF)
83 pages. "During the post-recession period (2008/2009 to 2012/2013), we found that ... fewer workers were employed in firms that offered [employer-sponsored insurance (ESI)], fewer employees were eligible for coverage, and fewer employees took up coverage when eligible. Part-time workers and those in small firms experienced the greatest declines in ESI coverage in the post-recession period, which occurred on top of existing lower rates of ESI coverage for those workers." (State Health Access Data Assistance Center)  

Hatch, Alexander Announce Legislation to Repeal Employer Mandate
"Today, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) introduced the American Job Protection Act, S. 305, a bill to repeal Obamacare's job-killing employer mandate. Under the President's health law, businesses with 50 or more equivalent employees are required to offer health insurance of minimum value or pay a penalty between $2,000 and $3,000 for each employee working 30 hours or more a week. The Chairmen were joined by 26 senators in cosponsoring the bill." (U.S. Senate Committee on Finance)  

HELP Committee Hearing: Employer Wellness Programs -- Better Health Outcomes and Lower Costs
Recording of hearing held Jan. 29, 2015. Witnesses: Dr. Gary W. Loveman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Caesars Entertainment Corporation, Las Vegas, NV; Dr. Catherine M. Baase, Chief Medical Officer, The Dow Chemical Company, Midland, MI; Dr. David C. Grossman, Medical Director for Population and Purchaser Strategy, Group Health Research Institute, Seattle, WA; James Matthew Abernathy, Nashville, TN; Jennifer Mathis, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Washington, DC; and Eric S. Dreiband, Partner, Jones Day, Washington, DC. (Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, U.S. Senate)  

HELP Committee Hearing: Examining Job-Based Health Insurance and Defining Full-Time Work
Recording of hearing held Jan. 22, 2015. Witnesses: Dr. Betsy Webb, Superintendent, Bangor School Department, Bangor, ME; Andrew F. Puzder, Chief Executive Officer, CKE Restaurants, Carpinteria, CA; Dr. Doug Holtz-Eakin, President, American Action Forum, Washington, DC; and Joe Fugere, Founder, Tutta Bella Pizzeria, Seattle, WA. (Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, U.S. Senate)  

Statement by Caesar's Entertainment's CEO to Senate HELP Committee Hearing on Employer Wellness Programs
"Employer-sponsored wellness programs are an ensemble of information, support and incentives designed to help participants improve their health and receive greater value. In return for participation, employers provide better and more affordable care. Wellness programs are ideally suited to address the emergent epidemic in chronic diseases, which exact a terrible toll on people's lives, but are among the most easily preventable and manageable of conditions." (Business Roundtable [BRT])  

Testimony of Catherine Baase, M.D. to Senate HELP Committee Hearing on Employer Wellness Programs (PDF)
"Success in engaging the business community, with appropriate actions as part of a broad societal strategy to improve health, is an imperative. To have optimal impact, employers need to have a comprehensive health strategy. The insight and business case for employer involvement in health has evolved. The health of employees and the communities in which the business operates have connection to multiple business/ employer priorities. It is possible to have a significant impact on the health of the employees through corporate health strategies and programs." (American Benefits Council)  

2014 Employee Benefits Year in Review, and What's Coming for 2015 (PDF)
43 presentation slides. Topics include: Employer mandate pay or play rules; Section 6055/Section 6056 Health care reform information reporting; Reference-based pricing; Skinny plans and minimum value issues; Updated COBRA notices to address exchange coverage; Individual policy reimbursement guidance (again); Wellness programs in the news; Expatriate plans get clarity; New excepted benefits rules; End of HIPAA certificates of creditable coverage; New SBCs for 2015; and U.S. Supreme Court to rule on federal exchange subsidies. (ABD Insurance & Financial Services)  

Senate Democrats, Every Single Democrat in the U.S. House and the White House Just Agreed: Obamacare Hurts Hiring
"In a bipartisan showing of unity, every single member of the U.S. House of Representatives, all 26 members of a U.S. Senate Committee and the White House agree that Obamacare hurts hiring. Not one single member or Administration official was willing to come out and state that no such dis-incentive exists.... In a rare show of bipartisanship over President Barack Obama's health care law, a Senate committee voted unanimously Wednesday to exclude veterans from the 50-worker threshold that triggers required coverage for employees under that statute." (Benefit Revolution)  

[Opinion]

King v. Burwell: The Prohibitive Cost of Any Congressional Response to a Ruling Against the ACA
"Using the same modeling techniques as CBO, the Urban Institute estimates that a Supreme Court decision against the Affordable Care Act would reduce federal spending by about $340 billion over 10 years.... The implications are enormous.... [A]ny legislation that seeks to restore the tax credits would be measured against this lower baseline. CBO would therefore score any legislation that fully restores the tax credits as increasing the federal budget deficit by roughly $340 billion over 10 years. Yet because the provisions of the Affordable Care Act that financed the coverage expansion would remain current law and endure as part of CBO's baseline, these financing sources would no longer be available to Congress." (Center for American Progress)  

Unfortunate Court Decision Holds Employer Liable for Legal, But Not Optimal, Tax Withholding
"The court concluded that the plan required the employer to withhold FICA tax at the time an employee deferral contribution was withheld or an employer matching was credited to an employee's account. If Henkel had done so -- following the special timing rule -- no FICA taxes would have been due on payments from the plan because of the non-duplication rule, and employees/participants would have enjoyed more favorable tax consequences. The court granted summary judgment to plaintiffs on their claim that the employer 'committed a FICA error in violation of the Plan.' " [Davidson v. Henkel Corp., No. 12-cv-14103 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 6, 2015)] (Winston & Strawn LLP)  

NAPA Announces 401(k) Advisor Leadership Award Semi-Finalists
National Association of Plan Advisors [NAPA]

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