Employers can expect double-digit cost increases to continue for all types
of medical coverage this year, with HMOs and POS plans forecast to see increases of 14.1 percent, according to Aon Consulting?s Spring 2004 Health Care
Trend Survey.
Health insurers are hearing it from their own retirees about reduced health and dental benfits. At Aetna's annual meeting last week, one retired executive said he never imagined that the company would do such a thing to him, or to the 2,500 co-workers he helped into early retirement.
Benefits costs in the private sector shot up 2.6 percent from December 2003
to March 2004, sharply higher than the 1.4 percent gain in the previous quarter,
according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In Connecticut, employers are finding that an increasing number of health insurers are charging gender-based rates, resulting in higher rates for thousands of women.
President Bush signed into law on Saturday a change in the formula that 31,000
U.S. companies must follow to fund traditional, defined-benefit pension plans—a
change that will save them more than $80 billion in contributions over the next
two years.
Hoping to facilitate the adoption of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) by employers,
the U.S. Department of Labor has issued a Field Assistance Bulletin (FAB) to its
investigators that provides them—and everyone else—with guidance on
enforcing the new rules governing HSAs.
The percentage of Americans who say they are saving for retirement has remained stagnant since 2001, according to new survey results. Blame it, at least in part, on unrealistic expectations about life after work.
Less than half of those with employer-provided health insurance said they "know
exactly" how much their health insurance premiums cost, according to the
results of an online poll conducted for the The Wall Street Journal Online’s
Health Industry Edition by the Harris Poll.
Citing projections of a $1.5 billion pension shortfall over the next 18 years, the mayor of Houston is asking voters to give him permission to opt out of Proposition 15, the recently adopted Texas initiative which says no city can
reduce or impair pension benefits that have already been accrued by vested employees and retirees.
