Healthcare

The wait is over as the Supreme Court today upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, paving the way for employers to continue meeting the health care reform provisions that come into effect this year and beyond.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act with the individual mandate being upheld under the Congressional power of taxation.

A sharply divided Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's signature health care overhaul law that requires that most Americans get insurance by 2014 or pay a financial penalty.

An impending showdown in Los Angeles pits Walmart against community activists who decry expansion plans by the world’s largest retailer in the nation’s second-largest city.

For more than a decade, AARP has recognized employers with progressive policies toward recruiting and retaining older employees. Now, the nonprofit has teamed up with the Society for Human Resource Management to cosponsor the AARP Best Employers for Workers Over 50 awards as applications are accepted for the 2013 search.

There’s no HR or policy and procedure manual detailed enough to help employers understand exactly what to do tomorrow following the Supreme Court’s ruling on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, due Thursday, June 28 at 10 a.m. “I don’t know that there’s a clearly defined playbook for employers in this situation,” says Jeff Munn, vice president of benefit policy at Fidelity Investments. “It’s probably been 50 years since we’ve had an opinion from the Supreme Court on a statute that affected as many people as this one does.”

At 2 p.m. EST tomorrow experts will provide insight on the fate of the mandate for individuals to purchase health coverage, and the finding on the constitutionality of PPACA as a whole. Sign up for the web seminar which will be held hours after the decision is released.

There is no shortage of opinions when it comes to the future of health insurance in the United States. And, opinions were readily shared this week at America’s Health Insurance Plans Institute 2012 in Salt Lake City. Connecture Inc., a sales automation technology provider in the health insurance space, conducted a survey of the health insurance executives at the conference, and made a number of conclusions, including:

Nearly 60% of HR and recruiting executives, directors and managers in a nationwide survey consider social media networks like LinkedIn and Facebook the next big wave in reaching a greater number of qualified candidates.

Email, instant messaging, laptops, digital teleconferencing and flexible schedules have dramatically changed the way people live and work, as well as how their personal and professional lives intersect. But a recent national poll of 570 working Americans concludes that, despite breathtaking advances in technology and greater workplace flexibility, work-life balance is still very much a work in progress.