Regulation

On June 17, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced new procedures for health plans with limited benefits to obtain temporary waivers of the restrictions on annual dollar limits that were imposed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The American Medical Association on Monday reaffirmed its position that individuals should be responsible for buying health insurance, a contentious provision of U.S. health care reform.

Plan sponsors who forget to actually do discrimination testing run into all sorts of problems, including the possibility that their plan can be disqualified. To pass the Section 105(h) nondiscrimination rules an employer must meet two separate tests.

Seven Republican presidential hopefuls knocked President Obama’s health care reform as a gross government intrusion, but sidestepped numerous chances to hit the party’s frontrunner, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, in a face-to-face encounter in New Hampshire.

Lawyers for President Barack Obama sought on Wednesday to stave off the biggest legal challenge yet to health care reform, his signature domestic policy achievement.

Lawyers for President Obama will on Wednesday seek to stave off the biggest legal challenge yet to health care reform, his signature domestic policy achievement.

Your communications with your attorney are not privileged. Wow, that is a scary thought, isn't it?

Benefit administrators, 401(k) vendors, recordkeepers and benefits professionals regularly recommend that participants in qualified retirement plans periodically review and update their beneficiary designation forms. Qualified retirement plans provide that if a married participant dies without a beneficiary designated, the death benefit will be paid to the participant's spouse, unless the spouse consents in writing to appointing an alternate payee. For a single participant, benefits are paid to their estate if no beneficiary is designated. What could be simpler that merely indicating to whom or to what entity a participant wishes their assets to be transferred in the event of death? Unfortunately, numerous issues arise in connection with the simple task of designating a beneficiary.

Nebraska lawmakers unanimously approved changes to collective bargaining for public workers on May 25 but the debate was not as divisive as in some other states, and the outcome was a compromise.

Attention to unclaimed property issues affecting life insurance companies – including issues relating to unpaid life insurance and annuity benefits – has significantly escalated in recent weeks, due to regulatory actions, media coverage, and public expressions of interest by the plaintiffs’ bar. This Legal Alert discusses those developments and puts them into perspective.