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OneAmerica
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Hot Topics in Employee Benefits: What We're Seeing
June 13, 2018 WEBCAST
Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP

Executive Compensation Landscape - How The Present Will Inform The Future
November 8, 2018 in NY
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It's PCORI Return Filing Time Again

"All employers sponsoring a self-funded group health plan, including an employer-contributed health care FSA and/or HRA, must file an IRS Form 720.... If the last day of the plan year was on or between January 1, 2017 and September 30, 2017, then the fee is $2.26 per covered individual. If the last day of the plan year was on or between October 1, 2017 and December 31, 2017, then the fee is $2.39 per covered individual." Kushner & Company

Employee Health, Benefits, & Well-Being Congress | July 30-31

Who is moving the needle on employee health care? This event convenes HR, benefits, and wellness executives, TPAs, Brokers, Payers, and Providers to learn and discuss strategies to enhance employee health and improve outcomes while reducing costs.

New Jersey Becomes Second State to Adopt Individual Mandate

"[T]he New Jersey Health Insurance Market Preservation Act ... and will go into effect on January 1, 2019. Revenue collected from New Jersey's individual mandate penalty will help fund a state-based reinsurance program ... Those without MEC may be subject to a penalty that is equal to the amount they would have paid if the ACA's mandate had not been repealed: $695 for adults ($347.50 per child) or 2.5 percent of a taxpayer's income, whichever is greater." Katie Keith, in Health Affairs

DOL Provides Updated Expiration Date on Model FMLA Notices

"[F]resh forms -- now sporting a June 30, 2018, expiration -- are now available from the DOL. Aside from the one-month expiration extension, no other changes have been made to the forms." HR Daily Advisor

New York City and New Jersey Paid Sick Leave Updates

"Next steps for employers with employees in New York City: [1] Revise your New York City sick time policy if necessary. [2] Provide written notice to employees by June 4. [3] Train supervisors on acceptable uses for safe time off. [4] Keep records proving that notices were distributed in a timely manner." ABD Insurance & Financial Services

No Fringe Benefit Left Behind: Incentivizing Employer-Provided Student Loan Repayments

"In February 2017, a bill was introduced to amend Section 127 to extend the tax exclusion of employer-provided education assistance to include payments of qualified education loans by an employer to either an employee or directly to a lender.... [T]he exclusion under this bill would still be limited to $5,250. In May 2017, a second bill was introduced to extend the tax exclusion to include payments of qualified loans and to increase the maximum amount excludible from $5,250 to $10,000."
Bloomberg BNA

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Insurer's Payment of Reduced Benefits Not a Fiduciary Breach

"Contrary to the widow's [assertion], LINA did not have a fiduciary duty to notify her husband that he had not completed the evidence of insurability requirement needed for the full amount of supplemental benefits. The plan documents showed that the circumstances in this case resulted not from any fault of LINA but, rather, from the employer's errors in failing to fulfill its fiduciary duties." [ Gordon v. CIGNA Corp. , No. 17-1188 (4th Cir. May 15, 2018)]
Wolters Kluwer Law & Business

Administration Issues Request for Information on Drug Costs

"While the RFI focuses mostly on drug companies and federal health care programs, it also has important long term ramifications for insurers and PBMs, particularly with respect to drug rebates, as well as potentially for employers that obtain prescription drug services in connection with their group health plans."
Groom Law Group

Department of Veterans Affairs Leads in Changing the Telehealth Landscape

"As a general rule, most telehealth practitioners are required to comply with various and state-specific licensing, registration, and certification requirements in order to render health care services via telehealth ... [T]he VA is exercising its authority as a federal agency to preempt conflicting state laws relating to the practice of medicine or other health care services via telehealth." Epstein Becker Green

Reclassification Risk in the Small Group Health Insurance Market

"[The authors] evaluate reclassification risk and adverse selection in the small group insurance market from a period before ACA community rating regulations. Using detailed individual-level data from a large insurer, [they] find a pass through of 5-43% from expected health risk to premiums. This limited reclassification risk cannot be explained by market power or search frictions but may be due to implicit long-term contracts." National Bureau of Economic Research [NBER]; purchase required for full document

Take-Up, Drop-Out, and Spending in ACA Marketplaces

"Enrollees who drop out re-time health spending to the months of insurance coverage. This drop-out behavior generates a new type of adverse selection: insurers face high costs relative to the premiums collected when they enroll strategic consumers.... [T]he pattern of attrition undermines market stability and can drive insurers to exit, even absent differences in enrollees' underlying health risks.... [I]nsurers largely shift the costs of attrition to non-drop-out enrollees, whose inertia generates low price sensitivity." National Bureau of Economic Research [NBER]; purchase required for full document

Health Benefits for Serious Illness Care (PDF)

18 pages. "[This paper proposes] benefits-related recommendations that would promote increased innovation, access to community-based serious illness care, and support for patients and their caregivers.... [1] Increase flexibility for Medicare Advantage plans ... [2] Promote VBID in private plans through an IRS 'safe harbor' ... [3] Allow retirement savings to be used to purchase long-term care insurance ... [4] Provide federal income tax credits for family caregiving ... [5] Conduct research on employer-based caregiving benefits." Discern Health

Obamacare's Cost Sharing Is Too High, Even for HSAs

"Congress created health savings accounts (HSAs) to help patients save tax-free dollars for health expenses -- -but most Obamacare plans do not allow for that option. Congress should make it easier to use HSAs, and address Obamacare's damage to the private market, which would help lower costs and expand choices." The Heritage Foundation

Supreme Court Decision Allows Employers to Bar at Least Some Employment Class Actions: What Could This Mean for You?

"[In] what is often an extraordinarily complex area of the law, an employer could be stuck with an arbitrator's legally erroneous (and large exposure) ruling with no meaningful chance for reversal.... The large exposures [under ERISA Section 502(a)(3) ] typically come from the aggregation of individual claims into a class action, which are the types of exposures that may be mitigated by requiring these claims to be arbitrated individually."
Holifield Janich Rachal Ferrera, PLLC

New European Data Privacy Law Impacts U.S. Employers' Handling of Human Resources Data

"Although 'data subject' will often mean someone who lives in the EU, it could also describe someone who travels in the EU and creates data while she is there (as we all do, regardless of our location, by using computers, personal devices, or the internet). Employers that have an active and ongoing practice of sending and receiving HR data to an affiliated company in the EU (for instance, a parent-subsidiary or franchise relationship) are those most likely transferring or processing GDPR-protected HR data." Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c.

Hacking Longevity: Understanding the Implications of Living to 100

"[This] research ... explores the key inflection points that people face as they enter each new stage of their lives between ages 35 to 80+, and how living longer informs their planning, expectations, and perceptions across domains such as health, finance, social connection, and learning." AARP

Coverage Extended to Domestic Partner Under a Voluntary Life Program. Taxable?

We are offering Voluntary Life benefits in increments of $10,000 to employees and their spouses. These benefits are 100% paid for by the employee with no tax benefit. If an employee wants to add his or her domestic partner, would the employee-paid voluntary life premium have any tax implications? BenefitsLink Message Boards

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Press Releases

Voya Financial Completes Annuities Transaction Voya Financial

NPPG Appoints Jim Brambilla as Defined Contribution Plan Administrator Northeast Professional Planning Group [NPPG)]

Sarah Kanter Joins Health and Welfare Group at Trucker Huss Trucker Huss

James Kelley, President, Strategic Benefit Services Joins the Retirement Advisor Council Retirement Advisor Council

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