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After increasing hammering from conservatives, the White House looks like it is ready to compromise on health reform’s contraception mandate. The administration had included contraceptives and sterilization in its list of preventive services all (except the few grandfathered) plans must cover starting plan years in August 2012. It had offered a year-long delay to religious […]
In this post, we reported on new IRS proposed rules on purchasing qualified lifetime annuity contracts (QLACs) under certain retirement plans. Recently in his blog, an industry expert provided more details on the guidance’s significance. In his blog the Business of Benefits, Attorney Robert Toth Jr., explains how: With just a relatively short regulation and […]
By Mark I. Schickman The legal status of gay marriage in California has been a rollercoaster ride. First, the California Supreme Court held that a ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional. Then California passed Proposition 8, writing a ban on gay marriage into the California Constitution — and the California Supreme Court bowed to that […]
Employers and plan administrators in California should continue to watch the pendulum regarding same-sex marriage in the Golden State, which has swung again. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 on Feb. 8 in Perry v. Brown, Nos. 10-16696, 11-16577, that Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that amended the […]
Self-funded companies can do a lot to improve employee health through wellness programs and creating “micro health delivery systems” (my term) with goals tailored to the firm’s employee population. The catch may be that only employers that are very large, very innovative and want to get very involved in health care may be able do […]
A 39-month prison sentence was handed down Feb. 1 for an Alabama woman who had pleaded guilty to stealing more than 4,000 patient records from a Birmingham hospital. A federal district court sentenced Chelsea Catherine Stewart to 15 months for wrongfully obtaining individual health information in violation of HIPAA, along with an unrelated bank fraud attempt […]
When American Airlines and its parent company, AMR Corp., filed for bankruptcy in November, many industry watchdogs dismissed the event as a chance for the airline to restructure and bring down costs. Which is why the developing skirmish between the #3 airline carrier and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) since then has been like […]
Guidance on how longevity annuity contracts purchased under 403(b) and eligible 457 retirement plans — as well as certain other retirement plans — can comply with the required minimum distribution (RMD) rules under Code Section 401(a)(9) was proposed Feb. 3 by the IRS. Code Section 401(a)(9) prescribes rules for a qualified trust under which the […]
There are two primary laws that will come to bear, the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), the subject of this article, and Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the subject of a future article. Besides those legal responsibilities, many employers will also consider that they have a broader ethical obligation to those […]
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issued the final rule for pension and 401(k) plan fee disclosures on Feb. 2. The announcement was jointly made with the U.S. Department of Treasury, which issued a proposal at the same time to reduce regulatory burdens on retirement incomes. Secretary of Labor Hilda […]