Benefits Think

It’s November, which means three things: open enrollment, turkey dinners and long-term care. Today (Nov. 1) marks the beginning of Long-Term Care Awareness Month, a concentrated push to get employees thinking about how they plan to receive and fund care in their later years.

Employee Benefit News now is accepting speaker proposals for its 2011 Benefits Forum & Expo, to be held Sept. 25-27 at the Hyatt Regency in Dallas. Get more information on how to get your session considered for next year’s program. Give us your A game, and we’ll give you a spot on the agenda in Big D.

Recent news from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals that by 2050 one in three Americans will have diabetes. As if that weren’t horrifying enough, nine out of 10 of the new cases will be linked to obesity.

Join me at the listening post for a special Daily Diversion podcast as Towers Watson senior consultant Alan Glickstein discusses the newest regulations regarding cash balance pension plans and what they rules mean for you.

You likely saw/heard/read the news reports coming from France, as infuriated workers burned cars and blocked streets in protest of a government to raise the nation’s retirement age from 60 to 62.

A recent blog post on the Mother Jones website put in the starkest terms I’ve ever seen the reality of the retirement crisis -- work indefinitely, live poor or die.

I’m always wary of something being called a “mega-trend,” so when I saw “7 Emerging Mega-Trends That Will Change Wellness Communication… Forever,” I sighed heavily, but clicked to read it anyway.

Here is some truly wonderful news to mark October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month: New research from Unum reveals that return-to-work rates for people on short-term disability claims due to breast cancer more than doubled from 2001 to 2007, rising from 28.8% to 59.4%.

New survey results from Mercer show that, although most likely unintentionally, the most serious compliance issue noted by almost two-thirds (61%) of respondents involved tax return revisions caused by improper reporting of worldwide income by expatriates.

For all that employers have to be concerned about when it comes to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the fear that changing one of their plans means losing grandfathered status for all plans is not one of them, Health, Labor and Treasury Department regulators clarified last week.