AHLRICHS: Turn health reform into pragmatic answers
Health reform entrepreneurship could brand Indiana as productive, healthy place for employers to operate.
Employee Benefits
Articles
Health reform tripping up Indiana wellness incentive
Federal health reform will trump an Indiana law that allows health insurers to offer steep discounts to employers with healthy workers and which institute aggressive wellness programs, but experts say other provisions will motivate small firms.
Indiana health exchange may take page from Utah playbook
In Utah, employers can give each of their workers a specific amount of money to apply toward health insurance. The worker then can use that money to choose from the 66 plans in the health insurance exchange.
Q&A: Jim Hamilton
Jim Hamilton, an employee-benefits lawyer at Bose McKinney & Evans in Indianapolis, discussed the likelihood of a Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives changing or even outright repealing the health care reform law, formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Cash crunch hits Indianapolis Urban League
After losing a key grant, Indianapolis Urban League laid off employees and failed to make three months' worth of retirement payments into one former worker's account—something that was remedied after the worker complained to the Labor Department.
Employee ire forces IU to pull wellness survey
Indiana University will no longer ask employees to fill out an online health risk assessment after more than 550 people—many anonymous—attached names to an online petition that said the plan would cause “widespread anger and disillusionment.”
New estimate drops health plan’s cost to Indiana
A new estimate has lowered the expected cost of the federal health care overhaul to Indiana’s state government to perhaps $2.6 billion over the next decade.
Health reform forces providers, insurers to lay aside rivalries
In this new age of health care, ushered in by President Obama’s signing in March of a sweeping health care reform law, health care players are encouraged to remove the gloves if they want to reap the benefits of reform.
On-site health care clinics moving beyond traditional settings
Health clinics based in employers’ offices are showing signs of breaking out of their niche among blue collar and government employers—factories, warehouses and school corporations—and could pop up in Class A office buildings filled with white collar workers.
Health care reform means changes for Indiana employers
Nearly four months after President Barack Obama signed a health reform bill into law, businesses are still grappling with its
impact on the health benefits they offer their employees.
FedEx wins dismissal of some claims in drivers’ suit
FedEx Corp. won partial dismissal of a class-action lawsuit brought by contract drivers who contend they are entitled to full
benefits because the company treats them as employees.
Q&A
Joe Guzman is a co-founder of Indianapolis-based Ascend USA, the new trade adopted after Guzman merged his
benefits brokerage, Benefits Strategies Inc., with benefits business Steven Goodin. The eight-person firm expects to hire
as many 15 new employees in the next year. Those workers will help Ascend diversify from health benefits into brokering commercial
insurance products.
WellPoint faces biggest changes under new law
The Indianapolis-based health insurer has more individual and small-business customers than its major competitors, increasing
the impact of health reform.
Reform offers risk, opportunities for Lilly, WellPoint
Drugmakers and insurers could gain millions of customers under the legislation, but the industry also will pay new fees and
face stricter rules that may shrink profit and fuel mergers.
WellPoint gets tax delay in Obama health plan
Insurers WellPoint Inc. and others would get a delay in taxes on premiums and high-cost medical benefits, along with additional
funding for expanding Medicaid, under a White House proposal
Obama endorses new taxes, more drugmaker fees
Obama, seeking to break an impasse over health-care legislation, proposes a plan that includes the first Medicare tax on unearned
income such as capital gains and higher fees on drugmakers.
Wintry weather testing work snow-day policies
Coping with wintery blasts is made easier by advancements in work-from-home technology. But different kinds of companies have
different policies when it comes to giving employees the option to telecommute or blow off the workday altogether.
Grass-roots groups prepare to fill gaps in health care reform
Legislation set to come out of Washington will not change the most fundamental problems of the health
care system, leaving it up to states, cities and companies to figure out what to do about it.
Shepherd Insurance buys rival DeTrude & Co.
The acquisition of DeTrude & Co. by Shepherd Insurance marks the 13th purchase of an Indianapolis-area benefits brokerage since mid-2007.
Employer costs surge despite low inflation
Employers are seeing their health care costs rise even though inflation is at a virtual standstill.