The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor and Treasury have issued regulations to implement a New Patient’s Bill of Rights under the Affordable Care Act to assist children (and eventually adults) with pre-existing conditions gain healthcare coverage and keep it. It will also protect the individual’s choice of doctors, and end lifetime limits on healthcare. The regulations released detail a set of protections that apply to healthcare coverage starting on or after September 23, 2010, six months after the enactment of the Affordable Care Act.
“The rule we are announcing today will allow employers to make routine and modest adjustments to co-payments, deductibles and employer contributions to their employees’ premiums without forfeiting grandfather status. This flexibility will encourage employers to continue offering health coverage to their employees and help to ensure coverage for all Americans,” said Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis.
These new protections will apply to nearly all health insurance plans. Limits on pre-existing conditions and annual limits will not apply to existing “grandfathered” plans offering individual coverage. For more details including the Fact Sheet and Interim Final Regulations, please visit the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website.
Do you own or work for a small business? If so, do you have a Human Resource Department? If the answer is no, you might want to reevaluate and consider making Human Resources a priority. A new study released last week by the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (LIR) showed that small businesses shoulder a large chunk of the nation’s tort liability costs, having paid approximately $105.4 billion in 2008.
The study done by the LIR, called the Tort Liability Costs for Small Businesses study, also found that small businesses, defined as those with $10 million or less in annual revenue, collectively paid $35.6 billion out-of-pocket rather than through insurance. In addition to this, litigation liability costs are expected to continue to grow, and it was forecasted that by 2011, small businesses will be paying $152 billion in tort costs.
Over the past 15 years, small businesses have created 64% of all net new jobs in the United States, so increasing liability, litigation and lawsuit costs for small businesses is coming at a time when it could really hurt future job growth. ILR President, Lisa Rickard said “As America struggles out of this current economic downturn, this study shows that our lawsuit system continues to be a drag on job-creating small businesses.”
If you are a small business owner, or just work for one, it would be a good idea to reevaluate and reconsider the value of an effective Human Resources program. HR Made Simple is an easy way to stay in compliance with the law, and provides the user with all necessary documents for best practices and paperwork for human resources compliance. For more information visit HR Made Simple.
ILR seeks to promote civil justice reform through legislative, political, judicial, and educational activities at the national, state, and local levels.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest business federation representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations.
HRSentry President and CEO, Dean Haller, was featured yesterday on Human Resources IQ. The discussion centered around the current state of mobile applications for Human Resources, and what the future may hold.
HRSentry is currently the only business providing an iPhone and iPad app, “HR At Your Fingertips,“ for Human Resources or Human Resources Compliance. Human Resources IQ gave HRSentry some accolades and said that it was “…quite an achievement to be one of the launch apps in the brand new game changing platform [of the iPad and iPhone app technology].”
“HR At Your Fingertips for the iPad and iPhone features:
a glossary of over 250 Human Resources related terms
Primary Federal Laws and Regulations
The basics of writing an employee handbook based on best practices and law
Listen to the full podcast here and visit Human Resources IQ for more interesting podcasts, discussions, and news-worthy articles. Visit HR At Your Fingertips to check out HRSentry’s Human Resources iPad and iPhone app.
Free Webinar: Please join us on Wednesday July 14th, 2010 at 2pm for the “Paid Time Off Programs: Should You Combine the Categories?” webinar, presented by Brenda JM Sabin, CHP HRSentry’s Director of Operations and Site Administration. Do you have paid time off programs such as Vacation, holiday, personal, sick time, etc? Many organizations have combined those buckets of time off into one comprehensive Paid Time Off (PTO) or Combined Time Off (CTO) program. This webinar will examine the pros and cons of a combined paid time off program.
Please join us to learn those pros and cons, and the steps necessary to take to make any changes to your current Paid Time Off Program. More information and sign ups are available for the “Paid Time Off Programs: Should You Combine the Categories?” webinar.
For more information and to register for the webinar please visit our website at www.hrsentry.com.
Individuals who lose their jobs after June 1,2010, will no longer be eligible for the 65% federal subsidy to cover the cost of their COBRA health insurance premium. The House Democrats opted to not extend the subsidy further in order to bring down the cost a jobs and tax bill currently going through Congress.
If the subsidy had continued through December 31,2010, it would have cost $7.8 billion to fund. The loss of the 15-month financial support leaves hundreds of thousands of newly unemployed Americans to take on the cost of health insurance coverage on their own. This will be hitting many unemployed American’s particularly hard. According to Families USA, a consumer advocacy group, on average the monthly premium for health insurance will take up approximately 84% of an individual’s unemployment check.
Fore more information visit CNN, or if you are an HR Made Simple user log in and search COBRA for additional information and documents.
