Benefit Design and Communication
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Retirement Showdown
Experts are looking to educate lawmakers about the benefits of protecting the existing tax treatment of retirement plans.
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So This Is 30: How Health Care Rules Are Changing for Part-Timers
While part-time workers make up 23 percent of the total workforce, only 15 percent of them are eligible for health coverage, survey reveals.
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Employers' Deadline to Inform Employees of Health Exchanges and Cost-Sharing Plans Extended
The March 1 deadline for businesses to notify employees of their benefits cost-sharing plans and government-run health insurance exchanges has been postponed. A new deadline is expected by fall.
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Employers Taking Charge of Their Retirement Plans
New federal rules released last year made clear that defined contribution plan sponsors needed to get a better handle on investment and other provider fees. A new survey shows that they have.
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Much 'To Do' to Keep Retirement Running Smoothly
Revisiting the company's investment plan statement should be the first order of business, and then start building your paper trail to ward off IRS inquiries.
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NHL Players Score New Pension Plan
The defined contribution plans, created during the last league lockout in 2005, will be restructured into voluntary contribution plans and neither plan will be terminated.
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Valuing Value: California Mines New Health Coverage Plan Concepts
SeeChange Health and Blue Shield of California are two San Francisco insurance companies that are stepping up efforts to market value-based insurance design plans to large employers.
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Certifications Aid Navigation of the Affordable Care Act Maze
Finding a qualified partner in the employee benefits industry can help companies adjust to the ACA regulatory landscape. Accreditations are enhancing their knowledge.
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Weighing in on Wellness Incentives
The American Heart Association and American Cancer Society are among the groups providing guidance on how organizations can design outcomes-based incentives programs that don't discriminate against employees.
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Cabinet-maker Among Firms Adding Wellness to Health Care Cupboard
For companies considering healthy programs, it's important to create a wellness culture, one executive says. “If you're doing it just to attack claims, don't do it. It won't succeed.”
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Lockheed Martin Offers Lump-Sum Option to Some Former Employees
When participants take lump sums and move out of a pension plan, employers can reduce certain fixed costs, such as the payment of sharply rising premiums to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.
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Pharmaceutical Giant Puts Medical-Home Concept to the Test
Working with a nonprofit program, GlaxoSmithKline is giving its North Carolina employees the opportunity to test a medical home's efficiency. The pharmaceutical company will see whether the two-year pilot program could mean cost savings.
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The Medical Home Evolves From Recordkeeping to a Community of Care
A patient-centered medical home practices preventive medicine and helps manage chronic illnesses through a partnership between patients and their primary care physician and other health professionals
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Mercer to Launch Health Insurance Exchange for Medicare-Eligible Employees
The exchange, which Mercer is offering along with Connextions Inc., a technology solutions company, will provide assistance to retirees during enrollment periods and throughout the year.
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AMR Seeks Court Approval to Remove Lump-Sum Benefit Option in Pilots' Pension Plan
American Airlines Inc. parent AMR Corp. has asked a federal bankruptcy court in New York for permission to allow the airline to amend its frozen pilots' pension plan so that retiring pilots cannot receive their accrued benefits as a lump-sum.
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Hostess Brands to Terminate Pension Plan as Part of Liquidation
Hostess suspended payments to the 42 multiemployer pension plans to which it contributes in August 2011. The company's IBC Defined Benefit Plan had about $56 million in assets and $111 million in liabilities as of April 30, according to the PBGC.
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Group Health Plan Costs Up 4.1 Percent in 2012, Smallest Increase in 15 years: Mercer
The 4.1 percent increase brought health plan costs to an average of $10,558 per employee in 2012, compared with $10,146 per employee in 2011, according to the survey.
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With Election Near, Romney, Obama Take Very Different Stances on Health Care Reform Law
Republican challenger Mitt Romney said numerous times during the campaign that one of his first acts, if elected, would be to seek repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
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Kimberly-Clark Offers Lump-Sum Pension Benefits
Participants will have until Nov. 21 to make the election. The lump sum payments will be funded from plan assets and will be made by the end of 2012.
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Verizon Buys Group Annuity and Sheds $7.5 Billion in Pension Liabilities
New York-based Verizon became the second major employer in recent months to announce such a pension plan risk-reduction strategy.
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Benefit Tech Tools Aim to Turn Employees Into Smart Shoppers
Health care consumerism—a movement to empower employees with information to help them choose plans, providers and treatments—is giving rise to online decision-support tools that assess the best benefit plan for their needs.
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Fewer Employers Offering Defined Benefit Pension Plans to New Salaried Employees
Just 11 Fortune 100 companies offered a traditional defined benefit plan to new salaried employees as of June 30, down from 14 in 2011, 17 in 2010 and 19 in 2009.
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Equifax to Offer Lump-Sum Pension Conversions to Eligible Former Employees
The offer is being extended to those individuals who terminated employment prior to Jan. 1, 2012, but have not yet started to receive benefits.
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Connecting Wellness-Program Participation and Incentives
Many companies offer incentives and tie them to plan design, specific health outcomes or apply surcharges when employees don't take part in particular programs.
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Health Care: Going Radical?
The option, which gives employees more autonomy, could revolutionize employer-provided health benefits, proponents say.
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What Gen X and Y Employees Want
A new MetLife survey shows younger employees don't mind paying for a wide array of benefits.
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National 401(k) Day Brings Retirement Planning Problems to Light
This year's Sept. 7 kickoff date for National 401(k) Day "is a great trigger event for plan sponsors to have the conversation of how to get the most out of your 401(k)," says Chris Augelli, vice president of sales operations at ADP Retirement Services. "But it's not a one-time event.
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Treatment Guidelines Help Reduce Amount of Services Used for Low Back Injuries: WRCI
In a report released September 5, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based WCRI studied Texas medical treatment guidelines that were implemented by the state in 2007. The study looked at how the guidelines affected workers with injuries of the upper back, lower back, neck, knee and shoulders.
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Self-Funded Employers Will Pay Billions for High-Cost Coverage
The first-year assessment paid by very large employers—those with at least 100,000 employees—will run into millions of dollars, for which employers will receive no direct benefit.
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Most Employees Say Benefits Enrollment Information Lacking: Survey
Fifty-two percent of workers indicated their employers have not distributed any communication regarding upcoming open enrollment periods. Thirty-nine percent said they were only somewhat prepared for open enrollments, while 26 percent said they were unprepared or very unprepared.
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Mid-Market Companies Face Health Benefits Enrollment Challenges
One challenge for middle-market companies is the U.S. Department of Labor has yet to finalize the regulations implementing the mandate in Section 1511 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
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Opinion: Business Leaders Have a Chance to Step Up and Fix Health Care
In the marketplace, employers' relationship with health care must be guided not only by the compassion of human resources but by the hard-headedness of finance and risk management.
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Senate Panel Approves Bill to Increase Mass Transit Contribution Tax Break
The provision is included in a broader bill, the Family and Business Tax Cut Certainty Act, approved Aug. 2 by the Senate panel on a 19-5 vote.
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Is Patient Health Taking a Hit Under High-Deductible Plans?
High-deductible health plans have been touted as a savvy behavioral tool to motivate enrollees to more closely scrutinize the price tag of imaging tests, brand-name drugs and more.
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Employers Play Key Role in Educating Workers on Health Plan Choices
'People who were confused about what was covered [outside of the deductible] were more likely to cut back on care,' one researcher says.
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Most Employers to Offer Health Plans to Employees in Near Future
The findings are similar to those last month from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, which found that 85 percent of respondents said they definitely would or were very likely to continue coverage.
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Law Will Cut Defined Benefit Pension Contributions, but Increase PBGC Premiums
Employers will continue to value plan liabilities based on interest rates on top-rated corporate bonds for three different segments, averaged over 24 months. Segments refer to when benefits are paid to participants.
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Ford Retirees Criticize Lump-Sum Payment Offer Vs. Monthly Pension Checks
The Ford Actions Impacting Retirees Alliance hired a team of lawyers, consultants and accountants to review the proposal Ford made this month, and in a letter to its members, advised against accepting the buyout, the Detroit News reported.
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A New Remedy Emerges for Spiraling Health Costs
Accountable care organizations require payers—i.e., insurers—and health care providers to better coordinate care for members, especially those with the most medical needs, with the goal of improving cost trends and patient outcomes.
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Employers Can Do More to Help Workers Avoid Missteps When Choosing a Health Plan
A new study by the Pacific Business Group on Health reveals that most workers don't understand the terminology used by health plans and aren't able to accurately figure out which plan will offer them the most benefits at the least cost.
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Health Care Provider Hopes 'Girls Just Want to Have Funds'
BayCare Health System of Florida has geared a new retirement savings push toward women after realizing that more than three-quarters of its workforce were female, generic savings seminars were not well attended, and women historically haven't been good savers.
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General Motors Retiree Group Rips Plan to Unload Pension Plan
The General Motors Retirees Association, in a June 13 letter addressed to GM CEO Dan Akerson and posted on the organization’s website, says it’s concerned that GM’s plan to shift the pension plan for white-collar retirees to Prudential Insurance Co.
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GM CEO: We're Tackling Biggest Problems—Europe, Pension Obligations
General Motors Corp. CEO Dan Akerson also said he would consider offering a pension buyout to GM's more than 400,000 hourly retirees and dependents as a way to reduce the $134 billion pension obligation on its books, which Akerson said is the largest of any U.S. company.
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Health Care Reform Takes Center Stage at SHRM Event
Typically, SHRM's conference agenda reflects the economic, political and other realities of the workplace, and this year is no different. Several sessions are scheduled on the topics of health care reform, social media, aging workers and domestic partner benefits.
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Lingering Personal Burdens Prompt Employers to Add Alternative Benefits
Easing personal stress is among the goals for adding free or low-cost legal services. One study indicates that workers who do not hire an attorney to help with legal issues are nearly three times as likely to spend five to 10 hours at work dealing with those problems than those who do hire counsel.
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Starting a Social Wellness Program
Social wellness tools won't do much if you don't establish objectives and a time frame for meeting them, says Jennifer Benz, a San Francisco-based employee wellness communications consultant.
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Transamerica Survey Points Out Need to Redefine ‘Retirement Readiness'
More than half of Transamerica Retirement Survey respondents say they don't think they are building a sufficient nest egg—a percentage consistent for all ages of workers.
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General Motors Co. Offers Pension Buyout to Salaried Workers
General Motors Co., in a statement, said the moves should reduce its U.S. pension liability by about $26 billion, a major step in its bid to reduce the $134 billion pension obligation on its books, which GM says is the largest pension liability for any U.S. corporation.
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Can Social Media Produce Wellness Results?
To win at employee wellness programs, companies are turning to online fitness challenges and Facebook-style social networks to boost workers' options, improve engagement and cut costs.
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House Panel OKs Bill to Ease FSA ‘Use-It-or-Lose-It' Rule
The bill approved by the House panel would eliminate over-the-counter restrictions in the health care reform law.
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Most Firms With DB Plans to Keep Them Open to New Hires
Among defined benefit plans offered to new hires, 54 percent are hybrid plans such as cash balance plans, which combine elements of defined benefit and defined contribution plans, but legally are defined benefit plans.
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Pharmacy Benefit Managers Cite Employees' Unhealthy Behavior as Biggest Challenge: Study
In the past five years, the percentage of plan sponsors who list the breadth of coverage offered to employees as a top priority for their plans has fallen 14 percent from 57 percent at the end of 2011.
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Departing Employees Often Neglect to Take One Thing: Retirement Cash
Retirement accounts that remain after a worker leaves are an annoyance to plan sponsors and a burden for company administrators.
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Young Workers on 401(k) Offerings: We Want Sure Things
Gun-shy employees are keen on investments that provide guaranteed income, though there is little interest in diversification.
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Investment Executive Aims to Put Retirement Security on Election Agenda
Putnam Investments' Robert Reynolds laid out a three-point plan—making Social Security solvent, providing employer savings programs to everyone who pays Social Security taxes and raising workplace savings rates to 10 percent—that he said should be addressed in every federal campaign.
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Ending a Defined Benefit Plan Takes Shutdown Strategy, Experts Say
Before a plan can be terminated, it needs to have all the funds necessary to pay benefits to employees. Once that happens, plan sponsors can start the process of shutting down the plan.
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Essential Health Benefit Packages Under Health Care Reform Have Employers Wary
Large and small employers have banded together to form the Essential Health Benefits Coalition to voice concerns in Washington and statehouses around the country on the issue.
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Longtime Employee Benefits Lobbyist to Retire From ERISA Group
Mark Ugoretz, the first and only permanent head of the ERISA Industry Committee, will retire next month after nearly 29 years with the Washington-based employee benefits lobbying organization.
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Insurer Goes After Surgery Centers for Out-of-Network Charges
Employers are addressing the practice in part by looking at their benefit design and increasing deductibles and lowering out-of-pocket maximums so workers must pay a larger share for going out of network.
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Benefitfocus Launches Online Health Insurance Exchange
Called HR InTouch Marketplace, the online private exchange mimics a retail site where employees can go online and add their chosen plans to a shopping cart.
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In an Apparent First, a Public Pension Plan Files for Bankruptcy
The development of the restructuring will set a precedent, particularly at a time when local government budgets and defined benefit plans are under strain.
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Fidelity: Enrollment in Health Savings Accounts Surges
Fidelity said April 11 that the number of health savings accounts it administered in 2011 jumped to 119,000, up 61 percent compared with 74,000 in 2010, its greatest annual increase.
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Racial Disparities in 401(k) Accounts Found: Aon
Among the employees who reported pulling money out of their retirement savings, two-thirds indicated they needed the cash for an emergency, debt or day-to-day living expenses.
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Injured Worker's Depression not Compensable Because She did not Return to Work
A doctor found that Delores Roxbury's depression was caused directly by her 2004 work accident, and prevented her from returning to her former position. However, an independent medical expert contended that Roxbury suffered from mild depression, and was not totally disabled by her mental condition.
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Pension Plan Funding Levels Hit Record Low in 2011: Milliman
The market value of pension plan assets increased by about $37 billion to about $1.246 trillion in 2011. But the value of plan liabilities leaped by about $133 billion to about $1.573 trillion.
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Dropping Health Care Coverage No Easy Decision for Employers
Because employer and employee health care benefit contributions are made on a pretax basis, it wil cost employers considerably more than the $2,000-per-employee fee for dropping coverage, if the law survives legal challenges being heard by the Supreme Court.
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Survey: Health Care Reform Splits Employers
Forty percent of employers want the high court, which is hearing oral arguments this week on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, to strike down the 2010 law. Still, employers are far from being united in favor of repealing it.
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White House Suggestions on Funding Contraception Coverage Called 'Unworkable'
Under one administration suggestion, TPAs could fund the coverage through rebates they receive from drug manufacturers that the TPA is not contractually liable to forward to the affiliates.
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Will New Claims and Appeals Procedures Change Case Law?
Health care reform regulations that took effect for the 2011 plan year require non-grandfathered self-insured and insured group health plans to make changes to their internal appeal procedures and offer external reviews of denied claims.
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Administration Lays Out Annual Dollar Limits on Student Health Care Plans
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said student health insurance policies must provide annual coverage limits for essential benefits of at least $500,000 for policy years beginning on or after Sept. 23, 2012, but before Jan. 1, 2014.
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U.S. Senate Passes Pension Funding Relief in Highway Bill
The U.S. Senate on March 14 approved allowing corporate defined benefit pension plans to base their contribution calculations on interest rates over a 25-year average rather than current interest rates, which have sent contribution payments soaring.
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Dreams of Comfortable Retirement Ebb Among Americans: EBRI
Thirty percent of those surveyed have virtually no savings or investments, and 60 percent reported less than $25,000 in savings, excluding the value of their home or any defined benefit plans.
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Judge Rules Law Mandating State Employee Contributions Is Unconstitutional
the law constitutes 'an unconstitutional impairment of plaintiffs' contract with the State of Florida, an unconstitutional taking of private property.'
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Northeastern Companies Reap Benefits of Healthy Habits
Six winners of the New England Employee Benefits Council's Best Practice awards for 2011 include Ocean Spray's Moms at Work program and Staples' use of computer games to entice the office supply company's younger workers to save for retirement.
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Despite Potential Prohibition, Matter of ‘Mini-Med' Insurance Plans Persists Via Waivers
The plans are attractive because they typically have low premiums—sometimes just $10 per month. But coverage limits can be as low as $1,000 annually, and some plans pay for just four doctor's visits per year.
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Massachusetts' Medical Menu
The Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance & Policy published cost figures of procedues last year, part of a blitzkrieg of data that officials have released as they strive to better understand what's driving the state's high health costs.
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Bye, Bye 'Dr. Beloved'?
More consumers in limited networks seem to be comfortable leaving a favorite doctor or hospital.
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Prospects for Boost in Employee Mass Transit Tax Breaks Dim
The history of the higher mass transit tax break goes back to 2009, when lawmakers approved an economic stimulus measure that allowed employees to reduce their taxable salaries by up to $230 a month to pay for mass transit expenses.
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Consultant Imagines Health Plan That May Cut Corporate Costs
Each participating company would pitch in to implement and maintain the network, with the cost likely to be based on a subscription model, including the number of participating employees and retirees and how much their medical care costs.
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States Get $229 Million for Health Insurance Exchanges
The total number of states receiving grants to establish state health insurance exchanges rose to 34 with the issuance of $229 million in federal funds to 10 states Feb. 22.
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Employer Guidance Urged for Pregnancy Discrimination Act
Testimony during the hearing showcased an employer's confusion over some of the act's rules.
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Biggest Expense for Americans Over 50? Not Health Care
Out-of-pocket costs on drugs and medical insurance are the second most costly item for older folks.
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Survey: CFOs View Employee Health as Affecting the Bottom Line
The survey, conducted by the not-for-profit Integrated Benefits Institute in San Francisco, indicates that the C-suite is increasingly involved in decisions regarding health benefits and the overall wellness of workers.
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Automatic Enrollment in Larger Employer Health Plans Delayed to 2014
In recent guidance by the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and the Internal Revenue Service, the agencies said the requirement will not go into effect until regulations are issued.
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GM to Phase Out Salaried Pensions, Shift Workers to 401(k) Plan
About 70 percent of General Motors' 26,000 salaried U.S. workers are enrolled in a defined benefit, or traditional, pension plan. Those workers will be shifted to a 401(k) plan starting on Oct. 1, said Cindy Brinkley, GM's vice president of global human resources.
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Michigan Unions Sue to Halt Mandated DB-or-DC Choice
A Michigan law requiring state employees to either contribute 4% of pay to the $9.
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Wisconsin's Tough Choice
Facing a $3.6 billion deficit for the state's 2011-13 budget, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says he knew he had to do something and didn't really like the choices. The budget shortfall was the largest the state had ever seen, and Walker says he didn't want to raise taxes, fire anybody or cut services.
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Obama Administration Compromises on Prescription Contraceptive Rules
Administration officials did not address how the coverage would be provided if the employer was self-insured. That issue is expected to be addressed in regulations to be released later.
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State Public Sector Retirement Plan Roundup
Here are some of the more noteworthy 2011 reforms from across the country, which were compiled from various sources.
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States Taking a Hard Look at Pensions
Considering that state and local pension systems are staring at $4 trillion in unfunded liabilities, it's no wonder that pension reform is on the minds of legislators across the country.
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Small Employers Exploring Health Care Exchange Options
A survey of 300 small-business owners in New York found that 84 percent believe health insurance exchanges, which will be in place in 2014 under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, are a good idea; 76 percent said they would consider using an exchange when enrolling employees in a...
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Aetna Accuses New York Doctors of Overcharging Patients
The insurance company's lawsuit takes aim at the practice called 'balance billing,' which wallops some customers with fees big enough to buy a house.
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Employers Eye Revamping Retirement Plans
With the continued downward spiral of the number of defined benefit plans, employers are becoming more concerned about workers having enough money to sustain their retirement.
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Treasury's Lifetime-Income Proposals Lean Heavily on Education
Observers find proposals to be well intended, but add that workers have a lot to learn on annuities.
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Amendments to FMLA's Military Leave Provisions Proposed
The Labor Department said the proposal released Jan. 30 implements amendments to the military leave provisions of the FMLA made by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2010.
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A Third of New Yorkers Say They Can't Retire
About 40 percent of New York workers had access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan in 2009, compared with the national average of 53 percent, according to the report by the New School's Bernard Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis.
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Plan Sponsors Plot Their ‘De-Risking' of Defined Benefits
According to a December 2011 study by Mercer and CFO Research Services, 59 percent of 192 senior-level financial executives surveyed say their defined benefit pension plan poses at least a moderate risk to their companies' short-term financial performance.
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Employers Adding Automatic Enrollment to DC Plans: Aon Hewitt
Under automatic enrollment, employees who don't respond to participation notices are enrolled automatically in a plan unless they notify their employers that they want to opt out.
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Raytheon, Lockheed Martin to Add Billions to Pension Plans
Raytheon Co. expects to contribute a combined $4.2 billion to its pension plans over the next three years, while Lockheed Martin Corp. foresees a $1.1 billion contribution to its pension trust, according to fourth-quarter earnings statements from both firms.
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Prepaid Gift Cards Offer the Benefit of Found Money
To reward their workers, nearly half of HR executives are using prepaid gift or credit cards as part of incentive programs and wellness initiatives.
