Benefits
Benefits Crippling Large and Small Businesses Alike
Two New York Times items today create a useful, if discouraging, overview of the way the American reliance on employers to provide health and pension benefits hurts our economy (and health). One explores how collectively-bargained benefit commitments hampered GM and left it vulnerable to collapse. The other discusses the massive lack of health coverage in the small business sector and how states are attempting to remedy it.
Four Supreme Court Employment Decisions in One Day!
Score that employees 2, employers 2. High Court rules: disability retirement program did not discriminate on age; employer has burden of proving reasonable factor other than age in age discrimination disparate impact cases; insurer conflict of interest is factor to consider in ruling on ERISA plan claims denials; California regulation of union-related activities of state-funded employers ispreempted by National Labor Relations Act.
Supreme Court Makes ERISA Sausage
“Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made.” Otto von Bismarck
This quote came to mind as my fatigued late-night-blogging mind struggled through last week’s Supreme Court decision in LaRue v. DeWolff, Boberg & Assoc., Inc., et al.
The Court upheld the right of an individual participant in a 401(k) retirement plan to sue under ERISA for a breach of fiduciary duty in the plan’s administration.
Right result. But messy and costly process, argumentation, and judicial reasoning to get there (the sausagemaking).
2008 Workworld Predictions: Looking into the Crystal Ball, Part I — Big Picture Trends
An effort to summarize 2008 workplace trend forecasts from a number of sources and assemble them in one place for quick comparison, followed by a few humble thoughts of my own.
Hospital Comparison Tool May Lead to More Affordable Healthcare
In my humble opinion, the health insurance crisis in the U.S. has many causes, and the “solution” is a puzzle with many pieces.
I am extremely leery of solutions that merely shift costs (such as to a single government payer), without doing anything to improve quality, encourage wellness, or encourage better competition among providers.
That said, one [...]
