A new analysis finds that employees without access to health care coverage other than their employer' plans are more likely to defer retirement in order to retain coverage. It further found that employees with defined benefit plans are more likely to retire in any given year than their counterparts with defined contribution plans.
The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service have issued new guidance on the maximum contribution levels for Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and out-of-pocket spending limits for High Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs) that must be used in conjunction with HSAs.
Health insurers would be prohibited from placing discriminatory restrictions on mental health and addiction treatment, under the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007, which was recently approved by the House of Representatives.
A 65-year-old couple retiring in 2008 will need approximately $225,000 to cover medical costs in retirement, according to an estimate by Fidelity Investments.
A recent survey asked employees if they would be willing to exchange their health benefits for an additional $7,500 in taxable income. Their collective answer was definitive.
Over 70 percent of employers will offer financial incentives to reward workers who adopt healthy lifestyles by 2009, according to a new survey by Watson Wyatt and the National Business Group on Health.
A new survey by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans reports that 71 percent of employers offer retiree health benefits to current and/or future retirees.
Since the early 1990s, employees at Proctor & Gamble had paid percentage co-insurance for their drug benefits. The company's goal was to maintain a 75%company/25% employee cost share. But things changed in 2003. That year brought the arrival of many specialty drugs along which were marketed directly to consumers (via television and other ads), and P&G began struggling to maintain the desired cost share.
