Hidden Costs of Health Care: Why Americans are Paying More but Getting Less

With each passing year, Americans are paying more for health care coverage. Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have nearly doubled since 2000, a rate three times faster than wages.1 In 2008, the average premium for a family plan purchased through an employer was $12,680, nearly the annual earnings of a full-time minimum wage job.2 Americans pay more than ever for health insurance, but get less coverage.

Rising Deductibles
A deductible is the amount of money a person must pay out of his or her own pocket before health insurance begins to cover the cost of medical expenses. Deductibles have risen substantially over time.

For preferred provider organization (PPO) plans purchased through an employer, the average family deductible increased 30 percent in just two years, from $1,034 to $1,344.3 This effect is more pronounced for small firms, where PPO deductibles increased from $1,439 to $2,367 — a rise of 64 percent.4
Families purchasing insurance through the individual market face deductibles that are more than two times greater than families with employer-sponsored PPO plans.

Higher Copayments
A copayment is the amount that people pay each time they visit the doctor. Like deductibles, copayments have steadily increased over time.

The average family deductible increased 30% in two years, from $1,034 to $1,344. This effect is more pronounced for small firms, where PPO deductibles increased from $1,439 to $2,367 — a rise of 64%.

SOurce: healthreform.gov

Click Here for the Complete Story

2009 Employee Benefits Examing Employee Benefits in a Fiscally Challenging Economy

According to this research, the vast majority of HR professionals indicated that their organizations have been affected by the current financial challenges to the U.S. and global economy. In this fragile economy, organizations are looking for ways to manage costs while at the same time dealing with the escalating expenses of employee benefits. So it is not surprising that 60% of organizations reported that the benefits offerings at their organization have been affected by the current financial challenges.

Additional noteworthy findings included the following:

- Most employee benefits offerings have experienced a slight downward trend over the last year.

- HR professionals indicated that their organizations spent on average 20% of an employee’s annual salary on mandatory benefits, 19% on voluntary benefits and 11% on pay for time not worked benefits.

- Eighty-one percent of HR professionals reported that their organizations reviewed their benefits programs annually, and 12% reported reviewing them even more frequently. This percentage increased significantly over the last year.

- In 2008, almost three-quarters (74%) of HR professionals reported that their organizations reviewed their benefits programs annually.

What Do These Findings Mean for Businesses? . . . See the full report here . . .

http://www.shrm.org/Research/SurveyFindings/Articles/Pages/2009EmployeeBenefitsSurveyReport.aspx

Source: SHRM

For the Complete Story Click Here

Health Care Reform: Coming Your Way

Lawmakers in Congress are making rapid progress on health care reform legislation that could bring sweeping changes in the way employers structure their group health plans and share the costs with employees.

While many details must be worked out — and plenty of controversy remains — there is considerable momentum both in Congress and in the White House to enact legislation this year. Moreover, there is already a surprising level of consensus on some components of the new health care system.

Employers should therefore not assume that health care reform will fail to pass (although that's always a possibility) or that it will have little effect on them. Your organization stands to be affected a great deal, and the changes could start to unfold sooner than you may realize. So it's not too early to start paying close attention to the debate in Congress and to begin thinking about how any final legislation may impact your organization's health care strategy.

Source: TPFC

Click Here for the Complete Story

10 Things Your Congressperson Won't Say

. . . Read the bills I vote on? Who’s got that kind of time? In a perfect world, our legislators would vote on each bill based on thorough, firsthand analysis. But that’s not how it works in Washington . Most congresspeople don’t actually read bills, relying instead on impressions gleaned from staff and lobbyists. And in many cases, they couldn’t read them if they wanted to: The 700- plus-page Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005, for example, surfaced after 1 a.m. and went to vote the next morning. “That’s the way it’s done,” Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.) told the Hartford Courant.

Result: Congresspeople seldom know exactly what they’re voting on. Take the 1,600-page Appropriations Bill in 2004 that had already made it through the House before it was discovered that a staffer had slipped in a provision permitting his committee to browse any tax return filed with the IRS.

Source: SmartMoney

Click Here for the Complete Story

Employers eye changes to 401(k) plans, study shows

A quarter of U.S. employers have eliminated or plan to cut matching contributions to employee 401(k) retirement plans to save money amid the economy's downturn, according to research released on Monday.

A quarter of U.S. employers also have instituted or are planning limited enrollment rather than open the savings plans to all employees, according to the study conducted for Charles Schwab Corp. by CFO Research Services.

Although the study showed that since September, 23 percent of companies have eliminated 401(k) matching contributions, or are planning to do so in the near future, most see the move as temporary, said Steve Anderson, who heads Retirement Plan Services at Charles Schwab, a financial services provider.

Source: Charles Schwab

Click Here for the Complete Story

Using Wellness Programs to Create Employee Engagement

. . . Historically, employers’ commitment to Wellness Programs has been dependent on establishing a meaningful and verifiable ROI that is sustainable over the long run. We posit that although making better lifestyle choices will improve health and lead to more productive employees that an alternate perspective is useful as well.

The ability of employers to effectively engage and enable employees to make better lifestyle choices will provide them a meaningful advantage in workplace. They will be in a better position to optimize the contribution of their employees, as well as mitigate the substantial financial burden that results from unhealthy behaviors.

It is paramount that organizations establish a process to ensure receipt of meaningful feedback from employees to generate a clear picture of their effectiveness
status and execute measures that will lead to employees making healthier choices.

Source: Reuters

Click Here for the Complete Story

There’s A Very Good Reason Wal-Mart Supports an Employer Mandate

There’s A Very Good Reason Wal-Mart Supports an Employer Mandate
Posted July 1st, 2009 at 2.02pm in Health Care.
Recent press reports, including a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal, have the news that Wal-Mart has signed a letter to President Obama endorsing the idea of an “employer mandate” – a requirement that employers offer health insurance to their employees.

Why would Wal-Mart – the nation’s largest employer – endorse such an idea?

Simple: It would cripple many of their competitors.

Source: Heritage Foundation

Click Here for the Complete Story

White House Won't Rule Out Benefits Tax

President Obama's top political adviser declined yesterday to rule out the possibility that the White House would agree to a tax hike on health insurance plans that would hit middle-income Americans.

Speaking on ABC's "This Week," David Axelrod declined to repeat Obama's "firm pledge" during the campaign that families making under $250,000 would not see "any form of tax increase, not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."

Instead, Axelrod said the president has no interest in "drawing lines in the sand" on the issue of how to pay for the costly health reform plan making its way through Congress.

"One of the problems we've had in this town is that people draw lines in the sand and they stop talking to each other. And you don't get anything done," Axelrod said. "That's not the way the president approaches this."

Axelrod insisted that Obama is "very cognizant of protecting people -- middle-class people, hardworking people, who are trying to get along in a very difficult economy." And he promised that the president "will continue to represent them" in negotiations with Congress over health reform.

He also repeated Obama's preference for a cap on the deductions that people making over $250,000 can take on their taxes as a way to pay for health-care changes.

Source: Washington Post

Click Here for the Complete Story

Guide to Health Reform 2009

This Guide will give you background on the health care reform efforts winding through the 111th Congress — the players, the timeline, and the issues. We will update this page as details described below change.

. . . the issues are continuing to develop, but most health care reform proposals have a framework that involves similar policies. These include:

Source: Segal

For the Complete Story Click Here

Health Care Reform: Coming Your Way

Lawmakers in Congress are making rapid progress on health care reform legislation that could bring sweeping changes in the way employers structure their group health plans and share the costs with employees.

While many details must be worked out — and plenty of controversy remains — there is considerable momentum both in Congress and in the White House to enact legislation this year. Moreover, there is already a surprising level of consensus on some components of the new health care system.

Employers should therefore not assume that health care reform will fail to pass (although that's always a possibility) or that it will have little effect on them. Your organization stands to be affected a great deal, and the changes could start to unfold sooner than you may realize. So it's not too early to start paying close attention to the debate in Congress and to begin thinking about how any final legislation may impact your organization's health care strategy.

Source: TPFC

Click Here for the Complete Story

Study Shows Employees Value Benefits More than Cash - Survey Dispels Conventional Wisdom About Employee Benefit Selection

A new study released by the Employee Benefits Group of Sun Life Financial finds that employees value their total benefits offering more than cash?even in this volatile economic environment.

In a nationwide online study, employees were asked to assume they had all the medical insurance their family needed and to distribute 100 points across other benefits based on how much they would value them. Respondents could allocate from 0 to 100 points across seven benefits: 401(k)/retirement plans, dental insurance, vision insurance, long-term disability, short-term disability, long-term care insurance, and cash. They were required to assign all 100 points.

Only 33% of participants assigned a value greater than 0 to cash?and only 5% of the total assigned a value greater than 30 to cash. In fact, cash was the least utilized category. By contrast, over 70% allocated a value greater than 0 to each of the other six benefits. And nearly half of all respondents indicated they valued a broad combination of benefits?by allocating at least some of their points to six or more benefits.

What was surprising is that a majority of employees, regardless of their age, seemed to value benefits more than cash, said Michael E. Shunney, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the U.S. Employee Benefits division of Sun Life Financial. The current market environment may even be increasing employees appreciation of those benefits that help them protect their familys financial security.

Source: SunLife

Click Here for the Complete Story

Employers eye changes to 401(k) plans, study shows

A quarter of U.S. employers have eliminated or plan to cut matching contributions to employee 401(k) retirement plans to save money amid the economy's downturn, according to research released on Monday.

A quarter of U.S. employers also have instituted or are planning limited enrollment rather than open the savings plans to all employees, according to the study conducted for Charles Schwab Corp. by CFO Research Services.

Although the study showed that since September, 23 percent of companies have eliminated 401(k) matching contributions, or are planning to do so in the near future, most see the move as temporary, said Steve Anderson, who heads Retirement Plan Services at Charles Schwab, a financial services provider.

Source: Charles Schwab

Click Here for the Complete Story

The Art Of Implementing A Great Worksite Wellness Program In A Small Business Setting

One Size Does Not Fit All! - When it comes to designing and delivering an employee wellness program in a small business setting it is important to understand that one size does not
fit all—from experience, we know small businesses are unique and distinctly different than larger-sized companies. As a result, there are several significant and important differences in the way that wellness programs are set up and administered in small business settings as opposed to larger ones.

The information contained in this article—and in the rest of this issue of Absolute Advantage for that matter pertains primarily to small businesses. Certainly, there’s no argument that a lot of what is presented here could also easily apply to medium and, in some instances, even larger-sized companies. But to be truly effective, the workplace wellness approach presented here should be considered appropriate for small business settings only.

Source: Welcoa

Click Here for the Complete Story

One Way to Lower Health Costs: Pay People to Be Healthy

Good news: Health costs as little as $3 a day. At least, that's all it took in one recent study for several patients to forgo bad behaviors that put their health at risk.

Each year, more than 40% of premature deaths in the United States result from unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, over-eating or failing to take medications as prescribed. Physicians routinely struggle to get patients to give up their bad habits for the sake of their long-term health, yet 20% of Americans still smoke, and 71% are either overweight or obese.

"We know that people in the short term have a lot of trouble changing their behavior in ways that is in their long-term best interest," says Kevin Volpp, Wharton professor of medicine and health care management, and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. "People aren't very good at making these tradeoffs between immediate gratification and delayed and often intangible benefits, such as good health 10 years from now."

Source: K@W

Click Here for the Complete Story

One Way to Lower Health Costs: Pay People to Be Healthy

Good news: Health costs as little as $3 a day. At least, that's all it took in one recent study for several patients to forgo bad behaviors that put their health at risk.

Each year, more than 40% of premature deaths in the United States result from unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, over-eating or failing to take medications as prescribed. Physicians routinely struggle to get patients to give up their bad habits for the sake of their long-term health, yet 20% of Americans still smoke, and 71% are either overweight or obese.

"We know that people in the short term have a lot of trouble changing their behavior in ways that is in their long-term best interest," says Kevin Volpp, Wharton professor of medicine and health care management, and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. "People aren't very good at making these tradeoffs between immediate gratification and delayed and often intangible benefits, such as good health 10 years from now."

Source: K@W

Click Here for the Complete Story

Why Employers Should Share the Responsibility of Paying for Health Care

Many health reform proposals call for employers, individuals, and the government all to share responsibility for paying for health care. Generally, under these proposals, employers that do not
provide coverage for their workers would be required to pay a fee toward the cost of coverage for their employees. Individuals who could afford to obtain coverage would be responsible for doing so, and the government would assist with premiums as needed.

Requiring employers to share the responsibility of paying for health care will create a level playing field among employers of all sizes, and it will help people who are satisfied with their job-based coverage keep that coverage. (About 61 percent of non-elderly Americans get their coverage through an employer.)

There are five reasons why it makes sense to require employers to contribute to the cost of coverage, which is known as an “employer responsibility requirement”:

Source: Families USA

Click Here for the Complete Story

Report: Health care costs to rise 9 pct in 2010

Employers who offer health insurance coverage could see a 9 percent cost increase next year, and their workers may face an even bigger hit, according to a report from consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Costs will rise in part because workers worried about losing their jobs are using their health care more while they still have it, the firm said in the report released to The Associated Press. The report also said rising unemployment is driving up medical costs.

Health care reform legislation currently being hashed out in Congress likely will have little impact on next year's costs, said PWC principal Michael Thompson. But he noted that the intense focus on health care may slow price increases.

The report projects the expected cost increase per person for employee benefits plans, and it factors in things such as price increases, as well as utilization changes.

Source: PWC

Click Here for the Complete Story

Milliman Medical Index - Family Costs $16,771 in 2009 up by $1,162 vs 2008

The Milliman Medical Index measures average annual medical spending for a typical American family of four covered by an employer-sponsored preferred provider organization (PPO) program.

The MMI provides a consistent benchmark of healthcare benefit costs by annually assessing the changes in those costs over the most recent five-year period.

Key MMI findings include:

The total 2009 medical cost for a typical American family of four is $16,771, compared with the 2008 figure of $15,609. This is a 7.4% increase from 2008 to 2009.

This is the third straight year of decreasing cost trends. Even so, the $1,162 increase is the highest since the 2006 increase of $1,169, when cost trends were at 9.6%.

The current economic environment has significant implications for healthcare costs. The consequences of employers' lost business, consumer insecurity, and provider revenue pressures affect healthcare utilization, charges for healthcare services, and who pays for the healthcare. The unprecedented uncertainty has accelerated cost increases in some ways and at the same time has reduced certain categories of utilization (e.g., elective procedures).

Source: Milliman

Click Here for the Complete Story

3 Ways to Get Your 401(k) Back on Track

We’re all searching for a quick way to fatten up our nest eggs. But all the potential remedies require discipline and patience. And the closer to retirement you are, the more difficult it will be to recoup stock market losses. Two new reports released today chronicle how long it will take to recover investment losses and how workers approaching retirement age plan to cope. Here are the 3 difficult, but not impossible ways to get your 401(k) back on track.

Rebounding returns. The easiest fix would, of course, be a full recovery of the stock market. But the returns necessary to repair your retirement accounts are unlikely to happen any time soon. Baby boomers over age 55 who wish to retire in the next two years will need annual investment returns of 13.64 percent to recoup their losses between January 1, 2008 and April 30, 2009, according to calculations released today by Mercer, a benefits administrator and consulting company. Investors who have 5 years to recover will need returns of 5.44 percent annually to get back to where they were a year and a half ago. Those with a longer time horizon will need only a 2.72 annual rate of return to recover over 10 years and just 1.81 percent annually over 15 years.

Source: US News

Click Here for the Complete Story

Employees Like Wellness Programs, but Don't Want Their Wages Tied to Them

While most employees at larger companies are familiar with wellness programs offered by their or other employers, they have mixed feelings when it comes to how incentives should be used to spur employee participation. And it turns out that access to wellness programs is somewhat limited to employees of large companies, those with a higher educational background and higher earners.

A study of 583 working adults at companies with 250 or more employees by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, released this month, finds that 38% of those surveyed say their employers offer some kind of wellness program, ranging from nutrition or healthy living classes to wellness newsletter and fitness-center memberships. Among the most common programs: on-site fitness and stress management, gym discounts, diet and nutrition programs, and weight and obesity control initiatives. But while 30% say these programs have a major impact on the health of employees, more than one-half say the impact is minor.

Source: AIS

Click Here for the Complete Story

Sweeping Health Care Reform Legislation’s Debut Draws Ire of Employers

But underneath the bristling, employers are trying to figure out what a good compromise might look like on key issues including taxing health benefits, employer mandates and a government-run option.

For months, congressional policymakers in charge of legislating health care reform held twice-weekly closed-door meetings with a wide-ranging group that included consumers and doctors as well as health insurers and employers.

The meetings signaled an unusual era of cooperation in the country’s decades-old pursuit of comprehensive health care reform, reflecting the urgency felt across the political divide to insure all Americans and reduce health costs. For employers, this was all well and good, as long as reform didn’t weaken the system that provides 170 million Americans with health insurance through their employer.

Source: Workforce.com

Click Here for the Complete Story

The Economic Impact of Healthcare Reform on Small Business

. . . Dramatically reduce the costs small businesses pay to provide health insurance to their employees. Healthcare costs are growing faster than the overall economy. Without reform, small businesses will pay nearly $2.4 trillion dollars over the next ten years in healthcare costs for their workers. With reform, the study shows that small businesses can save as much as $855 billion, a reduction of 36 percent, money that can be reinvested to grow the economy

More than any other sector of the economy, small business suffers from our broken healthcare system. From spiraling premium costs to inadequate access to quality healthcare for themselves and their employees, small business owners have seen their prospects for growth diminished and their profits slashed by today’s patchwork of inefficient healthcare options.

As the nation now debates comprehensive healthcare reform, America ’s entrepreneurs understand the need to focus on practical and effective solutions. For most of them, the tired political demagoguery of past healthcare debates cannot be allowed to trump the need for wholesale change. The cost of doing nothing is simply too high.

Source: Small Business Majority

Click Here for the Complete Story

CFO Magazine - Workers Sticking by 401(k) Plans

Even though employers continue to take away matches, employees are keeping their money in defined contribution plans. Employees aren't giving up on 401(k) plans even as the long-term viability of this method of retirement savings has come into question during the financial crisis. Chalk it up to an increase of automatic enrollments, workers' uncertainty about other savings options, or just plain laziness.

After all, many employers have pulled or lowered their 401(k) matches, giving employees less incentive to stay in the plans. However, Charles Schwab found that among the companies whose plans it manages, 77% of eligible employees participated last year, up from 73% in 2007, according to analysis released yesterday. The firm said the uptick was largely due to companies increasingly enrolling new employees automatically.

. . . Moreover, according to Charles Schwab, employees are not fiddling around with how they disburse their money in their 401(k) plans. Changes in asset allocations were not significant, the firm said. Charles Schwab has also noted that nearly half of the assets held by 401(k) participants who left their jobs during the first quarter of 2008 still haven't been claimed, by either taking a cash distribution or moving them to another retirement plan.

Source: CFO Magazine

Click Here for the Complete Story

Managing Intermittent Leave Under the FMLA

The FMLA does not require employees to use their leave entitlement in a single, continuous 12-week block. When medically necessary, employees may take leave intermittently or on a reduced leave schedule to care for the serious health condition of the employee or the employee's covered family member. Leave may also be taken intermittently or on a reduced leave schedule in connection with military family leave, whether due to a qualifying exigency of a covered military member or a serious injury or illness of a covered service member. Finally, if the employer, in its sole discretion, consents, leave taken after the birth of a healthy child or placement of a healthy child for adoption or foster care may be taken intermittently or through a reduced work schedule.

Source: Faegre & Benson

For the Complete Story Click Here

Milliman Medical Index - Family Costs $16,771 in 2009 up by $1,162 vs 2008

The Milliman Medical Index measures average annual medical spending for a typical American family of four covered by an employer-sponsored preferred provider organization (PPO) program.

The MMI provides a consistent benchmark of healthcare benefit costs by annually assessing the changes in those costs over the most recent five-year period.

Key MMI findings include:

The total 2009 medical cost for a typical American family of four is $16,771, compared with the 2008 figure of $15,609. This is a 7.4% increase from 2008 to 2009.

This is the third straight year of decreasing cost trends. Even so, the $1,162 increase is the highest since the 2006 increase of $1,169, when cost trends were at 9.6%.

The current economic environment has significant implications for healthcare costs. The consequences of employers' lost business, consumer insecurity, and provider revenue pressures affect healthcare utilization, charges for healthcare services, and who pays for the healthcare. The unprecedented uncertainty has accelerated cost increases in some ways and at the same time has reduced certain categories of utilization (e.g., elective procedures).

Source: Milliman

Click Here for the Complete Story

Obama's Voodoo Health Economics

On Monday President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers released a report called "The Economic Case for Health Care Reform." The report argues that Americans must curb their consumption of medical care in order to avoid soaring federal deficits, unsustainable burdens on family budgets, and damage to the economy. All of these claims are untrue.

- Federal deficits. The White House report makes the argument that there must be controls on what all Americans spend on health care in order to avoid government programs running huge deficits. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius uses the same faulty logic, warning that "the only way to slow Medicare spending is to slow overall health system spending through comprehensive and carefully crafted legislation."

In truth, Medicare can be fixed without subjecting the nation to medical scarcity. Telling all Americans they have to cut back on health care because Medicare is fiscally unsound is like ordering all Americans to go on diets because the food stamp program is in trouble.

It would be safer to reduce government's share of the health-care bill rather than lowering the standard of care for everyone and depressing the nation's largest industry. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has suggested alternatives such as asking wealthy seniors to pay more or inching the eligibility age upward two months a year until it reaches age 70 in 2043.

Source: WSJ

Click Here for the Complete Story

Debate Over Taxing Health Benefits Picks Up

"As the debate on how to fix health care picks up pace, so does discussion about one of the most lucrative ways to pay for it:" taxing employer-provided health benefits, CNN reports. The "tax-free arrangement" in which an employer's contribution to employee health benefit "is treated as tax-free to the employee in terms of income tax and payroll tax," was "born during the days of wage control in 1943." According to Paul Fronstin, director of the health research program at the Employee Benefit Research Institute, employers were not allowed to "attract workers on the basis of better pay," so instead they offered the benefits "as a way to compete for the best talent." Over the past 66 years, employees have come to expect it. But "tax and health experts say it's inequitable. High-income workers and those with the most expensive health insurance plans enjoy the biggest break as a result of the tax exclusion."

Depending on how the tax exclusion is capped, it could "generate anywhere from $41 billion over 10 years to more than $1 trillion," according to the Tax Policy Center . But a cap "could mean some people will pay tax for reasons that seem unfair," such as living in a more expensive area, working for a small business that does not benefit from the bargaining power of a large participant pool or for working in a business with an older, more expensive pool of workers (Sahadi, 6/4).

Source: KHN

Click Here for the Complete Story

Universal Coverage + Guaranteed Issue + Modified Community Rating = 95% Rate Increase

Health Insurance Rates to Almost Double for Many Americans!

Members of Congress are considering universal coverage, guaranteed issue and community rating. These reforms could increase the cost of health insurance 75 to 95 percent for most Americans who buy their own coverage, according to a new study by the Council for Affordable Health Insurance (CAHI) and health
insurance actuary Mark Litow.1 What does that mean for families?
Health Insurance Prices to Almost Double

CAHI first looked at the price of a family health insurance plan with a $2,000 or $2,500 deductible (some copays and other benefits vary) in several states. Then CAHI compared those rates to the expected increase predicted by the CAHI study. Health insurance rates will almost double for most American families who
buy their own policies if Congress passes universal coverage, guaranteed issue and community rating!

Source: CAHI

Click Here for the Complete Story

Safe Harbor 401(k) Chart: Factors to Consider and Key Operational Rules

These are some of the basics that an employer needs to know before considering a 401(k) Safe Harbor Plan. Each employer's goals, plan design, contribution sources and demographics form a unique scenario which the employer will wish to discuss with his or her plan provider before finalizing the decision to make the plan a 401(k) Safe Harbor Plan.

Source: McKay Hochman

Click Here for the Complete Story

Small-Business Owners Worry about Keeping 401(k) Match

As small-business owners fret about their ability to offer a 401(k) match, investment professionals can help.

A Nationwide Financial Services survey found that 44% of all of the employers who responded said they may have to cut back or cut out their 401(k) match. Small-business owners seemed more concerned. Some 75% of polled small businesses don’t expect the economy to affect their ability to continue offering a 401(k) plan, but 51% of the small-business owners anticipate the downturn could force them to reduce or eliminate their matching contributions.

Companies were asked to rank their top concerns regarding their retirement plan and found that 31% listed providing investment education to employees as their biggest concern. That concern increased among plans with a higher asset size.

Other concerns included:

- fiduciary and legal responsibilities related to the plan (29%)
- selection and monitoring of retirement plan investments (21%)
- investment and administrative fees (12%).

Source: Nationwide

For the Complete Story Click Here

A State-by-State Breakdown of Health Insurance Mandates and Their Costs

A health insurance “mandate” is a requirement that an insurance company or health plan cover (or offer coverage for) common
— but sometimes not so common — health care providers, benefits and patient populations. They include:

• Providers such as chiropractors and podiatrists, but also social workers and massage therapists;

• Benefits such as mammograms, well-child care and even drug and alcohol abuse treatment, but also acupuncture and hair prostheses (wigs); and,

• Populations such as adopted and non-custodial children.
For almost every health care product or service, there is someone who wants insurance to cover it so that those who sell the
products and services get more business and those who use the products and services don’t have to pay out of pocket for
them.

Source: CAHI

Click Here for the Complete Story