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Packets being given to retirees and separated, vested employees considering taking an immediate lump-sum distribution from their former employer’s defined benefit retirement plan rather than continuing lifetime income benefits routinely lack some key information needed to make an informed decision, or were unclear, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office in a recent study. With […]
In order to effectively implement provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized, on January 21, a rule detailing reforms to the rebate and reimbursement systems for Medicaid prescription drugs. The reforms will save federal and state governments an estimated $2.7 billion over 5 years.
888 Seafood Restaurant, a Chinese eatery in the San Gabriel Valley, has agreed to pay $306,500 in overtime back wages following a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) investigation that revealed pay improprieties. The funds will be shared by 57 employees who routinely put in additional work time after they clocked out, according to the DOL. […]
by Al Vreeland We’ve become a nation of firefighters. Not the heroic sort riding red trucks and saving lives, but the frenetic sort running from hot spot to hot spot, handling daily crises in order of priority. And we usually don’t take time to appreciate the people who help us. So as we belly up […]
If you can avoid medical problems through preventive medicine, can you do the same for legal problems? There’s a whole community of lawyers who think so. These days, businesses are spending millions of dollars on wellness initiatives, in an effort to cut healthcare costs by stopping medical troubles before they happen. Another term for this […]
Yesterday, we looked at some of the proposed changes to the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in areas relating to military leave. Today, a look at the other proposed changes, courtesy of Mark Schickman and Cathleen Yonahara, both attorneys at Freeland Cooper & Foreman LLP in San Francisco.
Zenaida Garcia-Ayala was working as a secretary for drug manufacturer Lederle Parenterals Inc. when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Lederle held her job open during several disability leaves while she underwent multiple surgeries, chemotherapy and ultimately a bone marrow transplant. But when Garcia-Ayala’s leave finally ran out, the company fired her. She then filed […]
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) will pay approximately $250 million in disability benefits to more than 1,700 retired state and local safety officers to settle an age-bias lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The lawsuit charged that CalPERS—following a state law adopted in 1980—linked the amount of disability benefits to […]
Those cases include General Dynamics Land Systems Inc. v. Cline, where the high court will consider whether the federal age-bias law permits employees over age 40 to sue because other workers also over age 40 were treated more favorably based on age. In Raytheon Co. v. Hernandez, the justices will decide whether the Americans with […]
The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) just released updated COBRA Model Notices that reflect the COBRA subsidy extension that was part of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010. The new COBRA subsidy legislation extends the original federal COBRA subsidy created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 […]