If the headlines in this newsletter aren't clickable for you,
please use the online, clickable version at:
https://benefitslink.com/2003/2003_05_28_welfare.html
(click or copy-and-paste the above address into your web browser)
BenefitsLink
Welfare Plans
Newsletter
Welfare Plans
Newsletter
May 28, 2003 - 8,255 subscribers
Today's sponsor: EBIA's ERISA Compliance for Health & Welfare Plans
(Click on company name or banner to learn more.)
Bring Your Welfare Benefits Plans Into ERISA Compliance ERISA Compliance for Health & Welfare Plans is an authoritative resource for employers, administrators and advisors. Written by leading employee benefits attorneys, this manual has all the information you need to bring your welfare benefit plans into compliance with ERISA. You'll also get the current eBook version of the entire manual on CD! Click above to learn more about this valuable treatise, which is always kept current through periodic updates.
(Please visit our sponsors. We try to make sure their products and services will be of interest to you. Thanks! --Editor)
Text of DOL Proposed Regs on COBRA Notices (PDF)
28 pages. Excerpt: "The proposed rules set minimum standards for the timing and content of the notices required under the continuation coverage provisions and establish standards for administering the notice process. This document also contains model forms for use by administrators of single-employer group health plans to satisfy their obligation to provide general notices and election notices." (U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration)
Text of DOL 'Fact Sheet' on COBRA Notice Proposed Regs
Excerpt: "The Labor Department's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) has proposed rules to provide uniformity and clarity on the various notices that the law requires to be furnished by employers, plan administrators, workers and their families." (U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration)
Supreme Court Says State Employees Permitted To Sue States for Violating FMLA
Excerpt: "The Supreme Court said yesterday that state workers have a right to sue their employers in federal court for alleged violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act, breaking with a recent trend in which the court has restricted the ability of the federal government to impose new requirements on the states." (Washington Post)
Audio Excerpt: High Court Upholds Family Leave for State Workers
Excerpt: "The Supreme Court upholds a federal law that allows state workers to sue for financial damages when they are denied unpaid leave to care for sick family members. The court's 6-to-3 ruling departs sharply from a previous line of rulings that expanded states' rights. NPR's Nina Totenberg reports.' (May 27, 2003) (National Public Radio)
'Treating Physician Rule' Not Part of ERISA, Supreme Court Says (PDF)
14 pages. Black & Decker Disability Plan v. Nord, No. 02-469 (5/27/2003). Excerpt from the opinion's syllabus: 'Held: ERISA does not require plan administrators to accord special deference to the opinions of treating physicians.... [A]dministrators may not arbitrarily refuse to credit a claimant's reliable evidence, including the opinions of a treating physician. But courts have no warrant to require administrators ... to accord special weight to the opinions of a claimant's physician ..." (Supreme Court of the United States of America)
California Public Employees' Pension Fund Hobbled by High Price of Old Age
Excerpt: "In a matter of weeks, the California Public Employees' Retirement System is expected to disclose its HMO premiums for 2004. A rite of spring once closely watched by Wall Street for signs of how high or low rates for all employers nationwide would go, the release of CalPERS' HMO premiums now warns of a new and potentially devastating market force: the high price of old age." (The Sacramento Bee via NewsAlert.com)
Analysis: IRS Guidance on Substantiating Claims Paid with Debit Cards (PDF)
2 pages. Excerpt: "The agency that enforces the electronic data interchange (EDI) rules of the Health Care Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has not yet issued guidance about whether a debit card transaction is subject to those rules. Employers that use debit cards should obtain assurance from their vendors that EDI standards are being used." (The Segal Company)
A Change in Opinion Occurs in COBRA Notice Case
Excerpt: "The originally released opinion in ... held that U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) guidance clearly gives an employer/plan administrator 44 days from the qualifying event date to send a COBRA election notice ... However, a different version of that same opinion ... is posted on the court's Web site. This final version deviated from the earlier one by stating that the [DOL] information letter, and case law relying on it, did not address the 'unique situation' in the case." (Thompson Publishing Group)
A Recipe to Change Tax Treatment of Employer-Provided Eating Facilities?
Excerpt: "A bill that would replace the entire Internal Revenue Code with a simpler regime may end up complicating certain fringe benefit issues, particularly the tax treatment of employer-provided eating facilities." (Thompson Publishing Group)
Employers Looking for More Help with Cost Reduction from Health Insurers, Third-Party Administrators
Excerpt: "Roughly three-quarters (73%) of employers say their health plans are not meeting expectations in terms of reducing insurance costs, and nearly two-thirds (64%) of employer respondents to a new survey say that current efforts being made by health plans are ineffective in reducing costs, according to a report from competitive intelligence firm Provizio." (PLANSPONSOR.com; one-time registration required)
The Shape We're In: Americans and Obesity
Excerpt: "'The Shape We're In,' supported by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services, focuses a spotlight on America's obesity crisis." (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)
Insurers Should Be Permitted To Sell Health Policies Online, Editorial Says
Excerpt: "New federal legislation that would allow insurance companies to sell individual health policies online to any person in the United States, regardless of location, could make health coverage 'affordable to millions of uninsured,' a Wall Street Journal editorial states." (KaiserNetwork.org)
Pressure Increases for Limiting Injury Lawsuits
Excerpt: "Arguing that legal costs and big jury awards are overwhelming them, insurance companies and other businesses have stepped up efforts in the states to restrict medical malpractice lawsuits and other kinds of personal injury suits." (New York Times; one-time registration required)
Wall Street Journal Looks at Trade Group's Support of AHP Proposals
Excerpt: "The Wall Street Journal on May 28 examines the National Federation of Independent Business' and other trade groups' support of association health plans, which they say would reduce the number of uninsured by allowing small businesses to offer health insurance that they previously could not afford." (KaiserNetwork.org)
Newspaper Editorials React to Supreme Court Decision on Maine Rx
Excerpt: "The following summarizes recent newspaper editorials in response to the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision in PhRMA v. Walsh to lift an injunction that had prevented Maine from implementing its prescription drug program called Maine Rx." (KaiserNetwork.org)
Newspapers, Broadcast Media Examine Health Care Proposals of Democratic Presidential Candidates
Excerpt: "The Washington Post on May 26 looked at the forces influencing Democratic presidential candidates' focus on universal health care.... [T]he slowed economy has generated concern about the cost of health care and the availability of insurance among voters who are most likely to participate in the Democratic presidential primaries. At the same time, some advocacy groups, such as the Service Employees International Union, are pressing candidates to make health care their priority ..." (KaiserNetwork.org)
Extent of Drug Companies' Data Collection Outrages Some Doctors
Excerpt: "Drug makers, in a level of detail unknown to many physicians, are spending millions of dollars to develop secret reports about individual doctors and their patients, according to consultants to the drug companies." (The Boston Globe)
Opinion: Employment-Based Health Insurance Is Failing-- Now What?
Excerpt: "A strategy, based on managed competition, to free employers from the health care cost spiral and produce effective managed care." (Alain C. Enthoven in Health Affairs)
Up to 40% of Long-Term Care Applicants Are Denied
Excerpt: "As many as four in 10 LTC applicants are declined for health reasons, according to a report to be featured in the June issue of Long-Term Care Insurance Sales Strategies magazine." (BenefitNews.com)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
Employee Stock Purchase Plans Could Be Hurt by New Option Accounting Rules
Excerpt: "Just as dolphins get caught in a tuna net, popular stock-purchase programs offered to employees at most of the nation's largest companies could become the unintended victims entangled in looming accounting-rule changes for stock options." (Knight Ridder Newspapers via The [Columbia, S.C] State)
Text of 2003 Annual Report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) (PDF)
12 pages. Excerpt: "Established in 1978, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI?) is the only nonprofit, nonpartisan organization in the United States totally committed to original public policy research and education on economic security and employee benefits. EBRI's overall mission is to contribute to, to encourage, and to enhance the development of sound employee benefit programs and sound public policy through objective research and education." (Employee Benefit Research Institute)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Pension Administrators
for Associated Pension Consultants
in CA
Employee Benefits Administrator
for Branch Banking & Trust Co.
in NC
Health Management Consultant
for Hewitt Associates LLC
in NC
Benefit Analyst III
for GreenPoint Financial
in NY
(401k) Enroller/Contractor
for Transamerica-The Winning Organization
in ALL STATES
Newly Posted Webcasts
( Post Yours! )
HIPAA Best Tips from Employee Benefits Security Administration
on May 29, 2003
presented by International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans
Newly Posted Conferences
( Post Yours! )
Recent Treasury Action on HRAs and Cash Balance Plans: How Does It Affect Your Small Business Clients?
in ALL STATES
June 17, 2003
ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits
ERISA Basics
in IL
June 4, 2003
ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits
Handy Links:
- View Today's Active Message Threads
- Search BenefitsLink
- Using the Web for Employee Benefits Research
- Employee Benefits Library
Copyright 2003 BenefitsLink.com, Inc.; except that you can forward this email in full (including this boilerplate part) or otherwise reprint this email in full (including this boilerplate part) without obtaining our permission.
Published by:
BenefitsLink.com, Inc.
https://benefitslink.com/about.html
1298 Minnesota Avenue, Suite H
Winter Park FL 32789
(407) 644-4146
Fax: (407) 644-2151
Editor and Publisher: David Rhett Baker, J.D.
Housekeeping: