A recent study from benefits consulting firm Millman Inc. revealed a not too surprising figure. Although the total cost to insure the average family on an employer-sponsored health insurance plan went up 7.4% from last year, the employee contribution to this year’s amount went up 14.7%. Employees, on average, paid $4,004 in premiums and $2,820 in out-of-pocket medical expenses.

This year is the third consecutive year that the Millman Medical Index (MMI), which measures average annual medical spending for a typical American family of four on an employer-sponsored PPO plan, found a double-digit percentage increase in employee contribution amounts. Counting premium payments alone, Millman found that the total cost to participate in an employer-sponsored plan can exceed 8% of the average annual household income of $50,000. ...

As some of you may already know, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has passed the strictest information security legislation in our nation to date in order to protect citizens against identity theft. This law goes into effect January 1, 2010 and takes a far more proactive approach than the “data breach notification” laws that 40 other states have put into place.

The law requires organizations that collect, maintain and transmit the personal information on any Massachusetts resident to digitally encrypt it to the extent technically feasible. The law also requires organizations to develop, implement and monitor a Written Information Security Plan. As you would expect, this law is highly complex. We would like to alert you to the many many subtleties that may prove challenging to your organization.

As employers, you need to make a concentrated effort to lead your employees into these consumer-driven plans. Some statistics presented in an HR Morning.com blog post last week illustrate this plain and simple truth; high deductible health plans (HDHPs) have been very slow to gain acceptance.

When this plan design was introduced in 2006, the participation among the entire population of American workers enrolled in their company-sponsored health plans was just 2.7% and grew to just 3.8% in 2007. Let's face it, no one likes change and the high deductible health plans are a huge change from the plans most of your employees are used to.

However, the times have changed since 2007 and with the economy in turmoil, HDHPs with their lower premium ...

How about training supervisors to listen to employees' initial complaints and take them seriously?

This is a nearly surefire way to keep your company out of trouble because when employees don't think their supervisors are taking their sexual harassment complaints seriously, they are likely to complain to someone outside of the company. The majority of the sexual harassment claims filed with the EEOC in 2008 were based on supervisors not responding to initial complaints.

Representative Steven M. Walsh, a Lynn Democrat, recently filed legislation allowing businesses with 50 or fewer employees to form a nonprofit consortium similar to the state’s Group Insurance Commission. The goal for establishing this consortium is to give small businesses the same group negotiating power afforded to state employees and employees of several local municipalities. Small businesses represent the vast majority of the Massachusetts workforce—87 percent—which amounts to about 724,000 individuals.

Representative Walsh’s legislation is pending before the Massachusetts Legislature’s Financial Services Committee and has already gotten some tough criticism from both business and insurance groups. According to Representative Walsh, this legislation is proposed largely due to the fact that the chief concern of small business own ...

1. Vital change in the language on the “lead attention pages” of Forms W-2, W-3, 1098, 1099 and 5498 . For “lead attention pages” of both the 2008 and 2009 Forms W-2, W-2c, W-2AS, W-2GU, W-2VI, W-3, W-3c, W-3PR, or W-3SS, the phrase “Do not file copy A with SSA” has been changed to “Do not file copy A downloaded from this website with the SSA.”

For the “lead attention pages” of Forms 1098, 1099 and 5498, the phrase “Do not file copy A with IRS” has been ...