What's new at EBRI this month:

Health Insurance Preference Survey: The results of the 1999 Health Insurance Preference Survey were released on April 29, 1999.  The survey was conducted to evaluate the level of public support for the employment-based health insurance system.

• April 29 Press Release
• Posted Questionnaire

The American Savings Education Council has released the following on the 1999 Youth & Money Survey:

• New Youth Savings Poster and Interactive Calculator
• April 24, 1999 Media Advisory
• April 26, 1999 Press Release
• 1999 Youth & Money Survey Full Report
• 1999 Youth & Money Survey Highlights
• Fact Sheet: Financial Understanding and Money Management: Perception vs. Reality Among Students
• Fact Sheet: Student Exposure to the Real World: Work and Savings
• Fact Sheet: Teaching Our Youth

The EBRI Issue Brief and EBRI Notes for the month of May are available online for ordering.  The May Issue Brief is entitled "Social Security, Retirement Incentives, and Retirement Behavior: An International Perspective." The May Notes articles are "Projecting IRA Balances & Withdrawals" and "Union Status and Health Insurance."

Policy Forum Book: Beyond Ideology: Are Individual Social Security Accounts Feasible? contains the papers from EBRI's December 2, 1998, policy forum.

EBRI Research Findings for 1998-1999:

• Overview
• Retirement Income Research
• Health Care Research
• Social Security

• The American Compensation Association provides listings of human resources-related congressional bills with links to the bills and to background information on the bills.
  • Senate bills
  • House bills

• Late-breaking news items from the weekly publication Business Insurance are posted every Friday before the Monday issue date.

• Click here for the latest available issue of the Washington Status Report from the research staff of Hewitt Associates.

• Milliman & Robertson's Employee Benefits Research Group provides monthly updates of a chart tracking employee benefits legislation: Monthly Benefit News and Developments.

• Click here for the daily edition of the Society for Human Resource Management's newspaper, HR News Online.

• Click here for the American Compensation Association's Compensation & Benefits NEWSLINE.

• ">IRS News Releases and Fact Sheets

• Internal Revenue Bulletin weekly issues

• Treasury regulations from the IRS

• The following items have been added to the General Accounting Office's Web site in Portable Document (PDF) format:
  • Medicare and Budget Surpluses: GAO’s Perspective on the President’s Proposal and the Need for Reform. T-AIMD/HEHS-99-113. 27 pp. March 10, 1999.
  • Medicare Managed Care: Greater Oversight Needed to Protect Beneficiary Rights. HEHS-99-68. 27 pp. plus 2 appendices (8 pp.) April 12, 1999.
  • Medicare Choice: New Standards Could Improve Accuracy and Usefulness of Plan Literature. HEHS-99-92. 25 pp. plus 2 appendices (8 pp.) April 12, 1999.
  • Medicare Managed Care Plans: Many Factors Contribute to Recent Withdrawals; Plan Interest Continues. HEHS-99-91. 53 pp. plus 5 appendices (16 pp.) April 27, 1999.

  If a title link above no longer works, click here for the GAO Index of Reports and Testimony, FY99, and search for the report by entering words or phrases from the title. Reports will also be added to GAO's searchable WAIS database in ASCII and PDF formats within 24 hours of the original posting. Any individual report may be retrieved directly in text and PDF formats with the following URL: http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?RPTNO replacing RPTNO with the report number (e.g., GAO/OCG-98-1).

If your computer does not already have the free Adobe Acrobat viewer software to read PDF files, click here for the one-time download necessary to read PDF publications.

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(5/28/99) Down A Dangerous Path: The Erosion of Health Insurance Coverage in the United States by Steven Findlay and Joel Miller is a May 1999, Policy Study from the National Coalition on Health Care.

(5/27/99) Understanding Cash Balance Plans is a briefing posted by The ERISA Industry Committee.

(5/27/99) The Employee Ownership 100: America's Largest Companies That Are Over 30% Employee-Owned Through an ESOP, Stock Purchase Plan, or Other Broad-Based Ownership Plan (current as of May 1999) is posted by The National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO).

(5/26/99) Economic Pricipals (sic): Bridges to the Future by David Warsh, Globe columnist, on bridge jobs and retirement, is a May 23, 1999, Boston Globe article citing EBRI.

(5/26/99) The American Society of Pension Actuaries provides a chart: Side by Side Comparison of House and Senate Pension Reform Bills.

(5/25/99) The Social Security Network site has added a special section containing Critiques of the National Public Radio (NPR) Social Security Series.

(5/25/99) Small Employer Health Insurance Purchasing Arrangements: Can They Expand Coverage? by Elliot K. Wicks and Jack A. Meyer has been posted by the National Coalition on Health Care.

(5/24/99) The 25th anniversary of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and ERISA, is commemorated with a Web site which includes a brief history and a page of milestones of the organization.

(5/21/99) IntellectualCapital.com's current issue includes: Ideological Gridlock on Social Security by Michael Calabrese, along with posted reader comments.

(5/21/99) Retirement Planning: Making It Last Forever on the Morningstar site also provides a link to an article titled: "Retirement Savings: Choosing a Withdrawal Rate That is Sustainable."

(5/20/99) A timely article, "Reservist Call-Ups Raise Benefits Issues" from CCH Human Resources, can be found at Workforce Online.

(5/20/99) Click here for InvestorWords which calls itself "the biggest, best investing glossary on the web."

(5/19/99) The Shaddeg Health Bill: Expanding Access and Choice, an Executive Memorandum by James Frogue, has been released by The Heritage Foundation.

(5/18/99)The Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America (PSCA) has released a newly completed national survey on retirement program offerings for employees conducted for PSCA by Bruskin/Goldring Research.

(5/17/99) Click here for Retirement Income Policies & Publications. The International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans "has compiled information on the retirement income policies [concerning Social Security reform] of various associations, institutes, and government agencies that have an interest in this issue. A profile of the organization is given and the position taken by the organization is summarized. If the organization has publications on this issue, they are listed, and information on how to obtain them is provided."

(5/17/99) US Competitors in the European DC Marketplace by Ward Harris, posted May 12, 1999, is "the third of a continuing series of reports on the state of the global defined contribution marketplace" from the 401kWire.

(5/17/99) "How Can We Provide for the Baby Boomers in Their Old Age?" by Dimitri B. Papadimitriou and L. Randall Wray is the 1999/5 edition of Policy Notes from the Jerome Levy Economics Institute.

(5/14/99) Recent articles on Microsoft and temporary workers:

• "Microsoft Temp Suit Widens" by Jay Greene of the Seattle Times
• "Court Rules for Microsoft Workers" in the Washington Post

(5/13/99) Click here for the statement of The Honorable John A. Boehner, Chairman, Subcommittee On Employer-Employee Relations, at the May 6 hearing on: "The Impact of External Revue on Health Care Quality " He refers to the results of EBRI's 1999 Health Insurance Preference Survey.

(5/13/99) The Health Insurance Association of America has posted Estimated Impact on Medigap Premiums of Potential Changes Suggested as Part of Medicare Reform by William C. Weller.

(5/12/99) Recently posted on The Heritage Foundation Web site:

• A Firm Foundation for Social Security Reform by David C. John
• Can Liberals and Conservatives Agree on Health Care Reform? A Heritage lecture delivered on April 27, 1999, by Representatives Jim McDermott (D-WA) and James Rogan (R-CA)

(5/12/99) Click here for President Clinton's remarks on the Financial Privacy and Consumer Protection Initiative.

(5/11/99) "Americans Are Not Saving: Should We Worry?" by Francois R. Velde is the title of the May 1999 article of The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's Chicago Fed Letter.

(5/10/99) The Business Case for Financial Education is the title of the Ernst & Young and Plan Sponsor survey which included human resource executives who have implemented financial education programs for employees.

(5/7/99) Click here for the April 1999 behaviorial health care report Health Care Plan Design and Cost Trends - 1988 through 1998 prepared for the National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems and the Association of Behavioral Group Practices by The Hay Group.

(5/5/99) Click here for the April 23, 1999, Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate of S. 6, The Patients' Bill of Rights Act of 1999, as introduced (Star Print) on January 19, 1999.

(5/5/99) Posted at Quicken.com on CNNfn: Baby Boom's Market Bust? When Baby Boomers Hit Their Golden Years, the Market May Get Tarnished.

(5/4/99) The Association of Private Pension and Welfare Plans (APPWP) posted April 23, 1999, an information report for members of Congress and their staff on cash balance pension plans: Addressing Today's Workforce Needs APPWP Voices Cash Balance Plans' Benefits to Employees and Employers.

(5/4/99) The American Enterprise Institute released a study dated April 1999 entitled Social Security: A Report on Current Polls.

(5/3/99) The Society of Actuaries has posted: Plan Design- Defined Benefit Only: It's Not Your Father's Oldsmobile Anymore by Eric P. Lofgren.

(5/3/99) Standard & Poor’s has posted a report on the workers’ compensation insurance sector and provides a link to the Standard & Poor's List of the Leading Providers of Workers Compensation Insurance.

(5/3/99) May 1999, is National Employee Health and Fitness month which highlights the importance of a healthy workplace and aims to promote year-round health and fitness programs to corporations, community organizations, schools, and universities.

For more information, contact: Cindy Porteous, National Association of Governor’s Councils on Physical Fitness and Sports, Pan American Plaza, 201 S. Capitol Ave., Suite 560, Indianapolis, IN 46225, (317) 237-5630, FAX (317) 237-5632.

(5/3/99) The National Taxpayers Union Foundation has posted the following:

• Conflict and Interest: An Analysis of the President’s Social Security Proposal by Marc L. Kaplan and Salo L. Zelermyer
• Private Savings Accounts: The Cure for What Ails Social Security by Eric V. Schlecht

(5/3/99) Available on the Heritage Foundation Web site: Social Security Trust Fund Report Shows Program's Finances Getting Worse by Daniel J. Mitchell.

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