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Employee Benefits Jobs
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Webcasts and Conferences
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[Guidance Overview]
In the AIR Tonight: First Look at New ACA E-Filing System
"The acronym AIR refers specifically to the electronic system developed to accept electronic filings of the Forms 1094-B, 1095-B, 1094-C, and 1095-C. AIR will process the submissions and provide a status and acknowledgment for transmitters and issuers.... Employers who utilize a payroll vendor, CPA, or other entity may have a limited role in the filing process if the payroll vendor, CPA or other entity is considered a transmitter.... Employers who process payroll in-house that plan to file the forms on their own should familiarize themselves with draft Publication 5165. The slide deck provides a helpful overview ...
ACA Information Returns are only accepted electronically in XML format. The IRS does not intend to develop an Excel-based e-filing system."
(Hill, Chesson & Woody)
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Excluding Interns from Health Coverage This Summer?
"[P]aid interns who work at least 30 hours per week are considered to be 'full-time employees' who could trigger employer penalties under the [ACA]. Employers may thus want to consider [1] implementing measurement periods to exclude seasonal employees (including interns) or [2] offering health plan coverage to interns, who are likely still covered under their parent's insurance or school insurance."
(Haynes and Boone, LLP)
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Ninth Circuit: LTD Plan Lacking Explicit Trust Agreement Did Comply with ERISA's Trust Requirement
"In this case, the Plan Instrument required CAPF to hold legal title to 'all property, monies and contract rights' as well as all of the funds maintained in connection with the Plan. CAPF held those assets for the Plan on behalf of the participants. Accordingly, the Plan Instrument established a fiduciary relationship between CAPF, as the trustee, and the participants, as beneficiaries, with respect to the property contributed to the Plan. In the court's view, this constituted a trust under the common law definition of that term." [Barboza v. Cal. Ass'n. of Prof. Firefighters, No. 11-15472 (9th Cir. Apr. 7, 2015)]
(Wolters Kluwer Law & Business)
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Health Care 2015: What's on the Menu? (PDF)
"Many companies are offering only high deductible options. In 2015, 32% of employers plan to fully replace their existing options with a choice of only high-deductible options, up nearly 50% from 22% of employers in 2014.... Although more research on the effectiveness of HDHPs is needed and will come over time ... [one recent study] followed 2.2 million participants and compared HDHPs paired with HSAs to traditional health plans such as PPOs. It revealed that employers who replaced their traditional health plans with HDHPs saved nearly $350 per member per year. The lower health care costs result in savings of $20.8 million over a six-year period for every 10,000 members."
(Fidelity Investments)
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Significant Data Breach Hits Partners HealthCare
"Partners stated it informed 3,300 affected patients on April 30, 2015 via mail that the breach included patient information, but Partners' electronic medical records had not been compromised. Some of the sensitive patient information collected include names, addresses, dates of birth, and telephone numbers. In some cases, Social Security numbers and clinical information were also disclosed.... [E]mployers can direct any affected employees to the Partners website, and encourage them to thoroughly review their Explanation of Benefits (EOB)."
(William Gallagher Associates)
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Improper Disposal of Paper Records Leads to $125,000 HIPAA Settlement
"Recent attention has focused on HIPAA breaches involving electronic PHI ... but this settlement reminds covered entities (including group health plans) and business associates (including TPAs and others performing services for a plan) that paper records still pose a real and substantial threat. HIPAA privacy policies and procedures should address how, when, and by whom paper PHI will be disposed of -- and workforce members must understand and follow these procedures in every instance."
(Thomson Reuters / EBIA)
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Health Plans Focus on Affordability
"With 2,930 exchange networks available this year, 90 percent of consumers have choices of both broad and smaller networks ... Health plans' provider networks hold down costs. Lower negotiated payment rates with in-network providers translate into lower premiums for consumers.... These efforts serve as the foundation for health plans implementing advanced new payment reforms."
(America's Health Insurance Plans [AHIP])
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Pennsylvania Governor Acts to Ensure Federal Healthcare Subsidies
"In order to protect 382,000 Pennsylvanians from potentially losing subsidies that help them afford health care coverage, I have written to the federal government outlining a contingency plan to set up a state-based marketplace to ensure no one loses their health coverage," [Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf] said in a statement. He added that his letter to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services does not mean that Pennsylvania must set up a state-based marketplace."
(Reuters)
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Almost Half of Obamacare Exchanges Face Financial Struggles in the Future
"Many of the online exchanges are wrestling with surging costs, especially for balky technology and expensive customer call centers -- and tepid enrollment numbers. To ease the fiscal distress, officials are considering raising fees on insurers, sharing costs with other states and pressing state lawmakers for cash infusions. Some are weighing turning over part or all of their troubled marketplaces to the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov, which now works smoothly."
(The Washington Post; subscription may be required)
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[Opinion]
Responding to King v. Burwell: Congress's Should Remove Costly Mandates Driving Up Premiums
"[E]xempting affected individuals and health plans from the biggest ACA insurance mandates could result in reductions of as much as 44 percent in premiums for younger adults and about 7 percent for pre-retirement age adults. Consequently, any congressional response should first focus on exempting individuals, employers, and insurance plans in states without state-run exchanges from the ACA regulations and mandates that increased health insurance premiums to start with. Making the reduction of coverage cost the top priority is also a first step toward a post-Obamacare market in which more affordable coverage reduces the number of individuals who might need assistance, as well as the size and scope of such assistance." [Accompanying Infographic contains details.]
(The Heritage Foundation)
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[Opinion]
Keep the Cadillac tax
"Abolishing Section 106 would require all Americans to confront the cost of employer-provided health care by including such cost in their gross incomes for tax purposes. Removing Section 106 from the Internal Revenue Code would force hard decisions in the workplace about health care coverage, as employees would pay income taxes on the medical insurance premiums employers expend on their behalf.... Compared to the repeal of Section 106, the Cadillac tax is a tepid response to the need to confront the cost of employer-provided medical care."
(Prof. Edward Zelinsky, OUPblog)
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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[Guidance Overview]
Pay-for-Performance Proxy Disclosure Rule Could Become Effective as Early as 2016
"[C]ompanies may be relieved that gathering the numerical disclosures that would be required under the rules proposed by the SEC will, for the most part, involve adapting and repurposing information that is already being gathered and used for other reporting purposes. However ... it may be challenging to provide useful and informative descriptive disclosure about the relationship between compensation 'actually paid' and 'financial performance' (as each is computed under the methodologies prescribed by the proposed rules), as well as the comparison of the company's [total shareholder return] to that of its peer group."
(Nixon Peabody LLP)
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[Guidance Overview]
SEC Proposes Pay-for-Performance Disclosure Rules (PDF)
5 pages. "The proposal would generally mandate that a company disclose in its proxy or information statement: the 'actual pay' of its principal executive officer, average 'actual pay' for its other named executive officers, the company's total shareholder return (TSR) and TSR for the company's peers ... each on an annual basis, over the five most recently completed fiscal years, subject to a phase-in period.... Supplemental disclosure is permitted, but not required."
(Frederic W. Cook & Co., Inc.)
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Executive Compensation: A Modern Primer
"This article studies traditional and modern theories of executive compensation, bringing them together under a unifying framework. [The authors] analyze assignment models of the level of pay, and static and dynamic moral hazard models of incentives, and compare their predictions to empirical findings.... [T]raditional optimal contracting theories find it difficult to explain the data, suggesting that compensation results from 'rent extraction' by CEOs. In contrast, more modern theories that arguably better capture the CEO setting do deliver predictions consistent with observed practices, suggesting that these practices need not be inefficient."
(National Bureau of Economic Research [NBER])
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Delaware Court of Chancery: Director Equity Grants Subject to 'Entire Fairness' Review
"The court found that the grants were a conflicted decision because all three members of the compensation committee that approved the grants also received the RSU awards. Citing Delaware Supreme Court precedent, the court noted director self-compensation decisions are conflicted transactions that 'lie outside the business judgment rule's presumptive protection, so that, where properly challenged, the receipt of self-determined benefits is subject to an affirmative showing that the compensation arrangements are fair to the corporation.' " [Valma v. Templeton et al., C.A.&ns9579-CB (Del. Ch. Apr. 30, 2015)]
(Dodd-Frank.com, a blog by Stinson Leonard Street)
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Press Releases
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