Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Employers have a new health care reform deadline to add to their calendars. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Labor (DOL), and the Department of the Treasury issued final regulations under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that are intended to help: individuals easily understand their health […]
Other highlights from the BLR/HRHero 2012 Health Insurance Benefits Survey: More than 96 percent of respondents to the health insurance benefits survey said they offer health insurance to workers More than 2/3 of respondents pay 75 percent or more of single coverage premiums. That number drops to 40 percent for family coverage 74 percent of […]
Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would hear a challenge to the massive health care reform law (also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or PPACA) enacted in March 2010. The Court revealed how important it considers this case by scheduling five and a half hours of oral […]
For years, BLR has surveyed HR and benefits professionals to find trends in benefits. We appreciate your participation in our monthly series of brief, targeted benefits surveys. Today’s survey topic: Health Insurance. (We’ll publish the results in a future issue.) Please participate in this brief survey and we’ll determine what employers are doing with this […]
You know the drill: spend some extra time and effort to bring down costs for the tiny percentage of participants who spend most of the health claims dollars, and you’ll reduce your insurance expenses. The problem, says Michael McKenna, president of Partners Benefit Group (www.partnersbenefitgroup.com), is that small or mid-sized fully-insured companies may not be […]
Each January, HR Hero conducts an online survey about health insurance and retirement benefits offered by our readers’ organizations. Most of the questions are similar each year and provide a good comparison to previous years. The one thing that changes is the essay question. And this year, boy did we hit a nerve with that […]
President-Elect Barack Obama has chosen former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle as his Secretary of Health and Human Services and health care czar. Daschle lays out his ideas about how to fix the ailing U.S. health care system in his book Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis, which was published in February […]
Rainn Wilson (Dwight) has been all over the place lately promoting his new movie and the new season of The Office. One of his more interesting appearances in the media was a Business Week article in which he was interviewed about “office jobs from hell.” It was interesting to learn that Rainn used to work […]
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the first observance of Labor Day is believed to have been a parade of 10,000 workers on September 5, 1882, in New York City, organized by Peter J. McGuire, a Carpenters and Joiners Union secretary. By 1893, more than half the states were observing a “Labor Day” on one […]
Resources for Humans Managing Editor Celeste Blackburn reviews Punching In: The Unauthorized Adventures of a Front-Line Employee by Alex Frankel. Review recounts examples from the book that show how companies both win over and lose employee buy in. In his “Author’s Note” for Punching In: The Unauthorized Adventures of a Front-Line Employee, Frankel writes “the […]