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The Spencer’s Benefits Reports is a summary of the week's news items posted in the WHAT'S NEW pages of Spencer’s Benefits Reports Online. For questions regarding this email service, contact Customer Service at (800)449-9525.
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Benefits costs for civilian workers increased 0.6 percent for the three-month period ending December 2011, according to the most recent Employment Cost Index from the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In the fourth quarter 2011, benefits costs rose at a faster pace than salaries, which only increased 0.4 percent…
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In 2010, 94.2 percent of Massachusetts residents had health insurance coverage, up from 86.6 percent in 2006, according to a recent report from online journal Health Affairs. In 2006, the state passed the Health Care Reform Act, which requires individuals, businesses, and the government to take steps to ensure that every state resident has health insurance coverage. The Health Affairs report, Massachusetts Health Reforms: Uninsurance Remains Low, Self-Reported Health Status Improves As State Prepares To Tackle Costs, noted that most of the coverage gains came in the first two years after the law was passed, and have remained relatively stable since then…
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ERISA preempted a small business owner’s claim that a pension third party administrator acted negligently and breached its fiduciary duty with respect to its administration of the owner’s Sec. 412(i) plan, the Eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled in Ehlen Floor Covering, Inc. v. Innovative Pension Strategies, Inc…
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The Department of Labor has announced it will soon issue proposed rules to implement new statutory amendments to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) that would expand military family leave provisions and incorporate a special eligibility provision for airline flight crew employees…
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An employer interfered with an employee’s Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) rights when it fired an employee after calculating that his leave had run out under the “rolling method”, ruled the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Thom v American Standard, Inc (Nos. 09-3507 and 09-3508). In its decision, the Sixth Circuit affirmed a trial court’s judgment on the interference claim. The appeals court further found that the employer acted in bad faith because it originally approved leave that would have extended longer than allowed under the rolling method and only after litigation ensued did it notify the employee that it was using the rolling method. Thus, liquidated damages were appropriate…
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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has published a notice requesting information to help the CMS gain market information on entities that could administer a transitional reinsurance program. The notice was published in the January 30 Federal Register…
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Consistently high costs for home health care, assisted living, and nursing home care across the nation underscore the critical need to address long term care as part of financial security planning, according to a recent survey from Northwestern Mutual. The survey, Cost of Long-Term Care Study, includes responses from more than 2,000 each of home health care organizations, nursing homes, and assisted living facilities…
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A pension plan participant’s estoppel claim against the plan failed because the participant’s evidence did not show the plan’s mistaken calculation of his benefit amount was an intentional attempt to mislead him, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled in Pearson v. Voith Paper Rolls, Inc. (No. 09-3884). Further, the participant failed to show that he relied to his detriment on the misrepresentation…
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The National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has announced a Discharge Follow-Up Appointment care transitions challenge, the second as part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) Investing in Innovation (i2) Initiative. With the support of Health 2.0 and Partnership for Patients, ONC launched the Discharge Follow-Up Appointment challenge in support of ONC’s Investing in Innovation (i2) program…
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Access to and participation in health care benefits varied widely by wage category, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In addition, the share of employer and employer contributions for this coverage also varied widely by wage category, the BLS noted in the recently released Program Perspectives on Health Benefits Costs by Wage Category…
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As the Supreme Court prepares to hear legal challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) in March, most Americans expect the Justices to base their ruling on their own ideological views rather than their interpretation of the law, according to the most recent Kaiser Family Foundation’s (KFF) Health Tracking Poll…
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The award of funds that were erroneously removed from a participant’s 401(k) account and credited to his former spouse incident to a marital dissolution would not violate ERISA’s anti-alienation rule, even if the plan has not yet recovered the funds from the spouse, according to the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The anti-alienation rule, the court advised, does not prevent plan funds from being used to satisfy a judgment against the plan. This was the decision in Milgram v. The Orthopedic Associates Defined Contribution Pension Plan…
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