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IRS Form Amended to Collect Health Outcomes Research Tax

Starting July 31, 2013, the IRS will start collecting, and employers will start paying, a new excise tax authorized by the health reform law. This annual fee will be imposed on most insured and self-insured group health plans for the next seven years.   The feds have amended the April 2013 IRS Form 720 (Quarterly Federal […]

Immigration: H-1B Visa Cap Reached for Fiscal Year 2007

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that, as of the end of May 2006, it already received enough H-1B visa petitions to meet and exceed the H-1B visa cap of 64,300 for the 2007 fiscal year (which begins on October 1, 2006). The final date to submit a petition for consideration […]

Sept. 23 Is the Key Date to Know the ABCs of SBCs

In some years, Sept. 23 represents the Autumn Equinox, but in 2012 for health plan sponsors and administrators, it triggers the compliance date for a key disclosure requirement under health reform: the distribution of summaries of benefits and coverage, beginning with open enrollment periods and/or plan years that begin on or after Sept. 23. Here […]

Hot List: New York Times Bestselling Paperback Business Books

The following is a list of the bestselling paperback business books as ranked by the New York Times on November 24. 1. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shales. A reinterpretation of the New Deal and the Great Depres­sion. 2. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by […]

News Notes: Wrongful Termination Suit OK’d Against Religious Employer

Frederick Phillips, a social worker for St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in San Bernardino County, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit charging the nonprofit religious corporation with race and sex bias and retaliation. A California Court of Appeal has given Phillips the go-ahead to pursue his lawsuit ruling that although the Fair Employment and Housing Act […]

Legislation Special Report: Workers’ Compensation

Delay Penalties and Utilization Review AB 1557 provides that an employee isn’t entitled to the usual 10 percent increase in workers’ compensation benefits for an unreasonable delay in providing medical treatment if the delay was necessary to complete the new utilization review process required of employers by the workers’ comp reform legislation (see below).

New Law Exempts Certain Motion Picture Employees from Meal Period Rules

Governor Schwarzenegger has signed A.B. 1734, a measure exempting certain motion picture and broadcasting workers who are covered by a collective bargaining agreement from meal period requirements under state law (in the Labor Code and Wage Orders). The exemption applies to employees in the motion picture industry or broadcasting industry, as those industries are defined […]

HHS Solicits Comments on Essential Health Benefits

An important component of health reform implementation is the imposition of an “essential benefits” package (of health goods and services that insurers of groups and individuals must cover). Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), that benefit package will be de rigueur (1) for policies sold on exchanges and (2) insurers of small […]