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Replace Obamacare, Stat!

"With a uniform tax credit, 90 percent of the problems the Obamacare exchanges are now having would go away in a flash. Signing up for insurance would be easy. Insurance companies and brokers would be able to sign people up outside the exchanges without asking privacy-invading questions about their income and assets.... Further, with a tax-credit approach, employers and employees would no longer face perverse incentives to buy wasteful insurance. (Under the current system, the more costly the insurance, the greater the tax benefit.) Instead, they could buy insurance that meets their core needs and increase take-home pay with the savings, with no tax penalty. This would lower the cost of employment and encourage hiring."

2022 Stop-Loss Stats and Health Plan Design Considerations

"71% of all stop-loss claims came from 10 procedures; over the last four years, 37% of claims came from the top three procedures ... Ideas to consider: [1] A cancer navigation program and a focus on specific cancer procedures that can be performed through bundled (fixed) costs. [2] Treatments, like dialysis infusion, done at home versus a medical facility ... [3] Ensuring access to detailed claims data to assess new strategies."

Some Comforting Stats for Retirement Plan Investors

"Data from leading retirement plan recordkeepers shows 401(k) and IRA accounts have seen smaller losses than retail brokerage accounts, thanks in no small part to the efforts of plan sponsors and their advisers. Corporate pensions have also fared better than their public counterparts."

DOL 2018 Enforcement Stats Send Wake-up Call for Complacent Fiduciaries

"The [DOL] recovered $1.6 billion in 2018. There were 1329 civil investigations, 64% of which resulted in a monetary recovery or corrective action. 111 of these went into litigation. There were also 268 criminal investigations.... What are some of the issues that might be uncovered by the [DOL]?"

Individual Mandate Penalty Stats Now Available: 2% of Americans Paid It and 300,000 Shouldn't Have

"300,000 taxpayers overpaid the penalty by a total of $35 million by failing to accurately apply one of the, now, 32 exemptions to the mandate.... [T]he IRS has not yet decided if it will issue a refund for those overpayments or pocket the cash. 10.7 million taxpayers did make use of one of the 32 exemptions.... 2.6 million Americans received an average of $3,000 each to buy a PPACA Exchange plan."

Quality Now Trumps Quantity in Stats on Uninsured

"For years, the Current Population Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau overestimated the number of people without health insurance. Last year, the Census Bureau revised the survey to correct the error, which was likely caused by the way the government asked Americans about their coverage. The fix ... should produce more-accurate estimates. But responses obtained with the new methodology aren't compatible with responses collected using the previous approach, making it harder to examine uninsured rates over the years at a crucial moment -- as Americans try to gauge the success of the Affordable Care Act."

Stats on Retirement Plan Coverage Require Careful Assessment

"One of the most commonly cited data points about retirement is that 'only about half of working Americans are covered by a workplace retirement plan.' ... The data point is relatively simple math: the number of workers who say they participated in a workplace retirement plan divided by the total number of workers. But when you take a closer look at the numbers, it's not really that straightforward -- especially since there are various types of workers, and that makes a huge difference in retirement coverage."

FMLA Stats Will Help Your Company Feel Better -- Unless You're in One of These Five Industries

"[T]he five industries where FMLA leave is most rampant ... Casinos (49% of employees take FMLA leave in a year), Health care (39%), Government (36%), Call centers (33%) and Manufacturing (23%). For comparison purposes, ... only 7% of employees in professional services firms take FMLA leave in a year -- one of the lowest industry percentages the study found."

2007 Stats for IRA Assets and Contributions; Facts and Background on Domestic Partner Benefits (PDF)

Excerpt: IRAs are the largest repository of U.S. retirement wealth .... [and this Issue Brief] updates previous research by EBRI providing information on why employers offer domestic partner health benefits, legal issues involved, recent developments, and current data.

First Issue of Annual OECD Newsletter with International Private Pension Stats: 'Pensions in Focus' (PDF)

12 pages. Excerpt: [T]he availability of an accurate, comprehensive, comparable and up-to-date body of international statistics [on privately funded pensions is] a necessary tool for policy makers, regulators and market participants. The first issue of this new OECD newsletter is an important step in that direction.