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September 16, 2003 - 8,548 subscribers
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Bucking Feds, Illinois Says It Plans to Import Drugs from Canada
Excerpt: "Facing budget-breaking increases in prescription drug bills, the governor of Illinois took the first step Sunday toward purchasing lower-cost medications from Canada, a move that puts him in direct conflict with federal regulators and signals a dramatic escalation in the civil war over U.S. drug prices." (The Indianapolis Star)
Sickened by the Costs of Employee Absenteeism
Excerpt: "Internally devised tracking systems, off-the-shelf software and outsourced absence reporting services are all growing popularity as employers try to figure out where an estimated 15 percent of their payroll is going." (Workforce.com)
What California's 'Pay or Play' Health Insurance Bill Means
Excerpt: "Question: What is the Health Insurance Act of 2003 (SB 2) and what would it do?" (The [San Jose] Mercury News via International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans)
Transcript of NPR Interview About California 'Pay or Play' Health Insurance Bill
Excerpt: "California may become the second state in the nation, after Hawaii, to require that employers provide health benefits to their employees. Proponents say it would be the most significant reform in decades, one that could begin a new national debate." (NPR via the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights)
Overview: Treasury to Reconsider Form 1099 Reporting Requirement for FSA Debit/Credit Cards
Excerpt: "The Treasury Department has released two letters indicating that it is reconsidering the issue of whether reporting on Form 1099 is required for payments to health care providers with debit/credit cards under health FSAs and HRAs." (EBIA Weekly)
Administrators Scramble To Adjust To Health FSA Revenue Ruling On Over-The-Counter Drugs
In the wake of the recent IRS revenue ruling regarding over-the-counter prescription drug plans, plan administrators are working hard to analyze the specific effects of the ruling and whether changes need to be made in Sec. 125 plans, both for this plan year and next plan year. (Spencer Benefits Reports)
Attorneys' Fees Awarded to Former Employee on COBRA Successor Liability Case
Risteen v. Youth for Understanding, Inc. (D.D.C. 2003). Excerpt: "The court pointed out that resolution of this issue might benefit plan participants not only in connection with future corporate reorganizations but also with respect to the reorganization that occurred in this case--23 of the defunct corporation's employees had not been rehired by the successor employer and might also be entitled to COBRA coverage under the successor employer's group health plan ..." (EBIA Weekly)
Former Employee's Complaint Did Not Establish Standing to Bring COBRA Lawsuit
Lakin v. Skaletsky (N.D. Ill. 2003). Excerpt: "An employee was terminated and sued his former employer for various employment-related claims including a failure to offer COBRA coverage. The court dismissed his COBRA claim because it found that the employee had not made allegations in his complaint sufficient to establish that he had standing to bring a lawsuit under COBRA, but it gave the employee permission to file an amended complaint within 14 days." (EBIA Weekly)
Co-Payment for Prescription Drugs to Be Determined by Discount Rate Paid by Insurer
Smith v. United HealthCare Services, Inc. (D. Minn. 2003). Excerpt: "The participants in this class-action lawsuit challenged the method used to calculate prescription drug co-payments under their insured ERISA health plans.... This most recent decision again highlights the importance of clearly explaining to plan participants the method by which co-payments are to be calculated." (EBIA Weekly)
Failure to Provide Conversion Information Meant Employer Had to Buy Individual Policy for Plaintiff
Brown v. Aventis Pharm., Inc. (8th Cir. 2003). Excerpt: "This case serves as another reminder that employers who aren't diligent about providing benefits information to terminating employees may face more than statutory penalties." (EBIA Weekly)
Text of American Academy of Actuaries Comments on EEOC Proposed 'Reverse Discrimination' Regs (PDF)
Excerpt: "Many actuaries who advise organizations on their employee benefit plans have witnessed and been troubled by the benefit erosion, which is a focus of the proposed rule's basis for exemption. We feel the EEOC's proposed rule ... is a reasonable and appropriate approach to address the relationship between the ADEA and retiree health benefits and satisfies our concerns on this issue." (American Academy of Actuaries)
Retirees Alarmed at Threat of Cuts in Retiree Health Benefits if Medicare Drug Benefit Goes Through
Excerpt: "Some lawmakers say this issue is emerging as the most immediate threat to the legislation. Congress is frantically seeking ways to address the concern, by offering tax credits, subsidies or other incentives for employers to continue providing drug benefits to retirees. The tax credits would be available to employers who maintain drug coverage or supplement what Medicare provides." (New York Times; one-time registration required)
Employees Can't Use Health Information They Can't Understand
Excerpt: "One widely promoted strategy for reducing healthcare costs is to give employees more health information so they can make better health care decisions about their own health behaviors, choice of health plans, doctors, and hospitals.... Unfortunately, health literacy research shows that instead of being understandable (and usable), most health-related information is incomprehensible (and therefore unusable)." (Mark Hochhauser, Ph.D.)
California Health Insurers Begin Drive for Generic Drugs
Excerpt: "Seeking to rein in soaring prescription drug costs, four of California's biggest health plans will use financial incentives in a campaign to convert members from expensive brand-name medicines to generic equivalents." (Los Angeles Times; one-time registration required)
Opinion: Answering the Critics of Health Accounts
Excerpt: "Many more Americans could save for current and future health care expenses in tax-free 'health accounts' under a proposal by House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.). The House of Representatives passed the Thomas proposal as part of the Medicare prescription drug bill, which is now before a House-Senate conference committee. Opponents want to strip health accounts from the Medicare bill, but their criticisms do not withstand scrutiny." (National Center for Policy Analysis)
Opinion: Tax-Free Health Accounts-- Portable, Flexible Health Coverage for Working Women
Excerpt: "To give working women the full benefit of pretax health insurance, the playing field must be leveled to allow all Americans to use pretax dollars to purchase their own private health insurance and to save for future medical expenses. The U.S. House of Representatives, as part of a bill to expand Medicare, recently approved a move in that direction." (National Center for Policy Analysis)
With Costs Soaring, Some Study Healthcare Rationing
Excerpt: "A group of doctors and medical ethicists, including physicians from Brown and Harvard universities, is working to develop national guidelines for the rationing of expensive intensive-care unit treatment -- and to get doctors to openly admit they withhold care from patients who would benefit the least." (The Boston Globe)
Employers Shift More Costs To Workers In Response To Higher Health Rates
Private health insurance premium increases in 2003 continued in the double digits for the third consecutive year, according to the 2003 Employer Health Benefits Survey released by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust (HRET). At 13.9%, the 2003 increase was the largest since 1990, and continued to exceed by far the general inflation rate and workers' wage increases. (Spencer Benefits Reports)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
IRS Executive Compensation Audit Initiative to Include Fringe Benefit Issues
Excerpt: "The IRS has begun an audit initiative focusing on compensation arrangements for corporate officers, directors and other senior executives. The Large and Mid-Size Business Division (LMSB) will target the following issues for executive compensation audits: 1. corporate air travel; 2. housing; 3. retirement contracts; 4. nonqualified deferred compensation plans; and 5. executive loans." (Thompson Publishing Group)
Exposure Draft: Employers' Disclosures About Pensions and Other Postretirement Benefits (PDF)
Excerpt: "It would require disclosures about defined benefit pension plan and other postretirement benefit plan assets, obligations, cash flows, and net cost and retain a number of disclosures required by FASB Statement No. 132, Employers' Disclosures about Pensions and Other Postretirement Benefits. This proposed Statement would eliminate Statement 132 requirements to provide reconciliations of beginning and ending balances of the fair value of plan assets and benefit obligations." (Financial Accounting Standards Board)
Opinion: It's Time to Solve the Pension and Retiree Healthcare Funding Mess
Excerpt: "Every carmaker--foreign ones, too-- would collect a $500 levy on the sale of each new vehicle here. The money would pay benefits for the Big 3's retirees." (Jerry Flint on Forbes.com)
Text of IRS Freedom of Information Act Handbook (PDF)
33 pages, 8/20/2003. Excerpt: "The Department of Treasury and the IRS policy is to implement the FOIA uniformly and consistently and to provide maximum allowable disclosure of records. Therefore, if a record is requested by a member of the public, and the requester follows the rules for making a FOIA request, that record will be disclosed unless it is appropriately protected from disclosure by one or more of the nine exemptions or by one of the three law enforcement record exclusions." (Internal Revenue Service)
Analysis: Court Imposes ERISA Liability on M&A Practices
Excerpt: "A surprise decision by the 9th Circuit has created a new risk of liability for those involved in corporate transactions.... In Lessard v. Applied Risk Management, the 9th Circuit took a new approach to analyzing a business transaction in a way that has installed new teeth into section 510." (BenefitNews.com)
Commentary: How Green Was My Envy
Excerpt: "Dick Grasso, who is the head of the New York Stock Exchange, is taking home $140 million in cash. That's cash, not checks. Not performance incentives to be named later. Not stock. Not even livestock. Cash. One hundred and forty million simoleons for his retirement. Even if simoleons don't go as far as they used to, that's a tremendous number of them." (Stanley Bing on Fortune.com)
Is Employee Benefit Cost-Cutting Too Damaging to the Social Contract?
Excerpt: "[Employee benefits attorney Brooks Hamilton says,] 'We shouldn't be talking about making the profit plan by cannibalizing benefits. You have to make your profit plan while honoring your obligation to employees. If you make your profit plan by cannibalizing benefits, you're not a very good businessman.'" (Scott Burns in the Houston Chronicle)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Client Services Specialist
for ExpertPlan, Inc.
in NJ
Pension Administrators
for Alliance Benefit Group of Illinois, Inc.
in IL
Senior Client Services Consultant
for Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.
in OH
Senior Customer Support Representative ? Employee Benefits Software
for AMS Benefits - a new benefits software division of AMS Services, Inc.
in FL
Newly Posted Press Releases
( Post Yours! )
Gilsbar, Inc. Expert Speaks on HIPAA Compliance at National SPBA Conference
(Gilsbar, Inc.)
OnQue Technologies Releases Latest Version of COBRA OnQue -- The Intelligent COBRA Administration Software
(OnQue Technologies, Inc.)
Identity Theft Protection
(Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.)
IRS REMINDS BUSINESSES OF RETIREMENT PLAN DEADLINE
(Internal Revenue Service)
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