Benefits Think

Remember the days when employees sat down with their HR/benefits representative to decide which of the available investment funds you wanted to include in your 401(k) retirement portfolio?

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) last week unveiled a plan to prop up the nation's struggling defined benefit and defined contribution retirement plan systems, and offer help to Americans in boosting retirement savings.

I don't believe the issue is going to be that employees will have to obtain their own benefits. I think the issue is going to be that, potentially, the government is going to step in as a benefits provider, especially in healthcare.

In this month's EBN, Integrated Benefits Institute President Thomas Parry details the organization's findings after surveying more than 500 employers to document their use of incentives and disincentives to encourage health and productivity for their combined 5 million employees.

Nearly half of U.S. workers foresee a future in which employers will not offer workplace benefits, such as health insurance and retirement savings plans, according to a survey by Fidelity Investments´consulting services group reported on BenefitNews.com.

Earlier this afternoon, I posted live Twitter updates on President Obama's first -ever online web-hall meeting. Taking a variety of questions from Internet viewers and a live White House audience, the president addressed several queries on health care.

First care coordination is debunked, and now this? A new study published in the February issue of the American Journal of Managed Care rips another page from the cost-containment playbook and turns it into confetti, concluding that step therapy -- which substitutes "Mercedes" brand-name prescription medicines...

In a column last Sunday in the Austin-American Statesman, commentator Scott Burns wrote:

To put it mildly, helping employees feel financially secure in this economic environment is challenging. The Principal Financial Group® believes companies meeting the challenge deserve to be recognized, and thus have opened the eighth annual search for The Principal® 10 Best Companies for Employee Financial...

I love any excuse for a party, but this is a genuinely good reason: The International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans is once again leading the celebrations for the annual National Employee Benefits Day (April 2).