Healthcare plans

Americans are divided on their outlook for the economy, a Harris poll of 2,464 adults earlier this month found. Twenty-one percent expect the economy will improve, 45% think it will stay the same, and 34% fear it will get worse.

Amidst all the talk of health benefit costs skyrocketing, there may be good news on the horizon. Early responses to a Mercer survey still in the field suggest that the average growth in health benefit cost will slow to 5.4% in 2012, the smallest increase since 1997. Still, cost growth remains well above both general inflation and growth in workers’ earnings.

The Kansas City Collaborative (KC2), a three-year long value based benefit project, succeeded in helping the 15 participating employers share best practices for overcoming health care challenges. Nine of these companies reported that they have saved almost $11 million in direct health care costs by implementing a value-based benefits initiative.

Financial planners can prove their worth if they find ways to lessen the chance that their clients will not outlive their retirement funds. David Blanchett, director of consulting and investment research for the Retirement Plan consulting Group of Unified Trust in Lexington, Ky., last week detailed how planners can implement sustainable withdrawal strategies so that retirement income works for their clients.

The U.S. Department of Labor on Monday withdrew a controversial proposal to subject financial professionals to a higher standard of care when advising companies on their retirement plans, bowing to pressure from securities industry groups and lawmakers.

Life insurance agents are expressing concern about a proposed change emanating from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. Find out what happened at a congressional hearing last week.

With knowledge comes responsibility and when we ask for transparency that's exactly what we get ... more responsibility. In health care being reponsible means two things, read about those in today's BeAdvised.

Some things only make sense in the aggregate. The issue of longevity is a prime example. While longer life spans is one of the unalloyed successes of the preceding century, the aggregate impact of aging populations also represents a major challenge for governments and benefit companies.

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service are asking for public input on a proposed health care reform rule that would make it easier for employers to determine whether the health insurance coverage they offer is considered “affordable” for employees.

The rising cost of health care will soon be reflected even more substantially in employee cost-sharing. A new National Business Group on Health survey shows that large employers anticipate their health care benefit costs to climb 7.2% in 2012.

The Early Retiree Reinsurance Program - created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to help employers offset the costs of maintaining early retiree health benefits - may get another $5 billion worth of funds thanks to a bill introduced in the Senate this spring. However, some industry insiders don't expect the bill to gain much traction.

OhioHealth's manager of benefits administration integrated all of OhioHealth's wellness initiatives into one program, branding the new program OhioHealthy, in 2006. The following year, she consolidated OhioHealth's three health plans into one. Meddock's accomplishments in these initiatives has earned her EBN's 2011 Benny Award for Benefits Leadership in Health Care.

New research from Aflac underscores a big opportunity for advisers to help ease employees’ confusion during open enrollment.

Facing the twin blights of constrained state budgets and eroding market value amid the still-sputtering economy, retirement programs for public employees are under siege, with numerous state and local employers either undertaking or considering massive restructuring of their benefit plans.

Benefits and benchmarking go hand in hand, particularly for health and retirement plans. The National Compensation Survey on Health and Retirement Plan Provisions in Private Industry report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics provides benchmarking data for workplace health and retirement benefits.

Half of America’s households (about 58 million) claim to be underinsured when it comes to life insurance, according to a new study from LIMRA. The study, “Trillion Dollar Baby Growing Up,” revealed as much as $17.5 trillion in untapped sales potential for the life insurance market.

In 2012 the rate of medical inflation will continue to rise, PricewaterhouseCoopers reports. Employers are frustrated - not so much by the high cost of the medical as by the apparently intractable upward cost trend that is making benefits plans unsustainable.

The U.S. health care payments industry is undergoing changes as it grapples with inefficiencies in how patients, payers and providers exchange information and money. At the same time, it must respond to economic pressures, government reforms and other dynamics while it focuses on quality, value and cost reduction.

There's a lot of strategic talk in Big Sky Country these days about the power of biometric screenings, health care analytics, value-based pharmacy benefit management, captives insurance and state-run health cooperatives under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Not since TV's "Dallas" asked, "Who killed JR?" has our nation faced such an important mystery: Who killed consumer-directed health care? After all, a few years ago, many of us thought that the long struggle to control health care cost inflation was about to end happily.