What's new at EBRI this month:

The Hurdles to Privatizing Social Security: EBRI's November 1998 Issue Brief examines "Individual Social Security Accounts: Issues in Assessing Administrative Feasibility and Costs." The analysis -- the first of its kind -- provides specific information about how and why individual investment accounts would require fundamental changes in the way the existing Social Security system is operated, how those changes would affect employer administrative complexity and cost, and how long it might take to implement a new system due to the diversity of the U.S. workforce.

• Press Release
• Issue Brief in .pdf format
• Powerpoint slides from EBRI's November 12 Press Conference at the National Press Club: What will IAs Cost to Administer?

Consumer Health Education Council (CHEC): The Employee Benefit Research Institute Education and Research Fund  has posted the Strategic Plan of CHEC.

• 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

• Click here for the latest News Online compiled weekly by the staff of Pensions & Investments.

• 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.
• Click here for the daily edition of the Society for Human Resource Management's newspaper, HR News Online.
• The following item has been added to the General Accounting Office's Web site in Portable Document (PDF) format:
  • Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation: Financial Condition Improving, but Long-Term Risks Remain. HEHS-99-5. 29 pp. plus 2 appendices (7 pp.) October 16, 1998.

  If a title link above no longer works, click here for the GAO Index of Reports and Testimony, FY98, 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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(11/30/98) A study released by the Commerce Department's Census Bureau, Gender and Aging: Mortality and Health, (IB/98-2), is the second in a series of four international profiles focusing on gender and aging.

(11/25/98) The Revised Supplement, "Q & A: Recent Changes in Health Care Law" includes additional questions and answers under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), replacements to the chapters on the Mental Health Parity Act (MHPA) and the Newborns’ and Mothers’ Health Protection Act (the Newborns’ Act), and questions and answers on the recently enacted Women’s Health and Cancer Rights Act of 1998 (Women’s Health Act).

(11/23/98) Plan Sponsor's second annual Defined Contribution Services Survey is available online: Options Shine-Technology Disappoints: Vendors' Internet Capabilities in Particular Need Work.

(11/20/98) Information on 1997 National Health Expenditures is available on the Web site of the Health Care Financing Administration.

(11/19/98) Click here for an overview of the survey results of 401(k) Plan Sponsorship Growth 1994-1998 online at the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America's Web site.

(11/18/98) Click here to read the November 17, 1998, letter to the Honorable Bob Livingston (R-La.) from The Concord Coalition Co-Chairs Sam Nunn and Warren Rudman on Livingston's pledge that as Speaker of the House he will introduce a bill to make sure we "no longer use Social Security proceeds to mask the budget deficit."

(11/17/98) The Investment Company Institute, the national association of the investment company industry, provides a Web site on Mutual Fund Fees and Expenses.

(11/13/98) According to a post-election survey released by the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA), the Congressional election results contain no mandate for so-called "patient protections".

(11/12/98) Results from the 1998 Women’s Retirement Confidence Survey (WRCS) have been posted by the American Savings Education Council:

• Not Your Mother's Retirement: Women and Saving in 1998
• Fact Sheet: Women and Retirement
• Fact Sheet: Retirement and the Gender Gap
• Fact Sheet: Minority Women and Retirement

(11/9/98) The Commonwealth Fund has posted Highlights of the 1998 Multinational Comparisons of Health Care and the 1998 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey - Chart Pack.

(11/7/98) PBGC's Small Business Guide summarizes all employer administrative responsibilities under the pension insurance program.

(11/6/98) The Aging Baby Boom: Implications for Employment and Training Programs by Stacy Poulos and Demetra Smith Nightingale is available on the Urban Institute site.

(11/5/98) Aon Consulting presents HRCompDepot, a human resource tools Web site.

(11/4/98) Milliman & Robertson provides a Quick Reference Card: Pension Limits and Thresholds for 1995 ¾ 1999.

(11/4/98) The White House released a report, Women and Retirement Security, prepared by the National Economic Council Interagency Working Group on Social Security.

(11/3/98) Click here for a paper from the Pension Research Council: Social Security Money's Worth.

(11/2/98) The National Women's Forum on Retirement Education, a new program to help women overcome the gender gap in retirement saving, will begin on November 12, 6-8 p.m. with a special event at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. Click here for the details.

(11/2/98) The IRS has released Notice 98-52 which provides guidance on the design-based alternative or "safe harbor" methods in section 401(k)(12) and section 401(m)(11) of the Internal Revenue Code for satisfying the section 401(k) and section 401(m) nondiscrimination tests.

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