American Benefits Podcast

Shawn Gremminger recently assumed the role of president and CEO of the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Associations -- a Council member and frequent ally on health care policy. In this episode, we discuss the National Alliance's unique structure and composition, its policy priorities and the importance of getting value for every health care dollar.

Fred Thiele, vice president, global benefits and mobility for Microsoft, will serve as chair of the American Benefits Council's Board of Directors for the 2023-2024 term. In this episode, he speaks with host Jason Hammersla about his company's unique approach to benefits, outlines his priorities for the next year and drops a few tales of questionable reimbursement requests.

Diversity, equity and inclusion is a priority for many of the American Benefits Council’s member companies, who have in turn directed us to engage with these issues as they relate to employee benefits.  Over the previous 12 months, the Council has established a task force to address social determinants of health and joined with a number of other esteemed organizations to release the research report, Collection of Race and Ethnicity Data for Use by Health Plans to Advance Health Equity. The project was a collaboration with Urban Institute and Deloitte’s Health Equity Institute, as funded by Elevance Health. In this podcast episode, Jennifer Haley, senior research associate in the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center, talks to host Jason Hammersla about the recent collaborative study examining the collection and sharing of race and ethnicity data and how that data might be used by health plans to advance health equity.

If the American Benefits Council is to be a leader in the employee benefits world, we must have strong internal leadership. The Council’s policy agenda is carefully considered and set by our Policy Board of Directors, made up of knowledgeable and dedicated human resource and benefits professionals at each of our most engaged member companies. Holding the gavel at the head of that table is this episode's special guest. Speaking to host Jason Hammersla is Tracy Watts, senior partner in Mercer’s Washington D.C. office and the company’s National Leader for U.S. Health Care Reform. As one of the nation’s foremost experts on the intersection of health policy and business strategy, Tracy speaks with Jason about the latest in employer innovation, the importance of the Council's advocacy and her vision for the organization's future.

For many multinational companies, figuring out how to scale employee benefits for a global population is a critical element of their economic competitiveness. But if providing comprehensive employee benefit programs in the United States is like playing advanced chess, doing so on a global basis is like playing advanced chess on a moving speedboat. The American Benefits Council's policy team is not only engaged with the whole wide world at the “big-picture” level, it is also focused on practical matters for global employee benefit plan sponsors like governance, employee mobility, mergers and acquisitions and more. Guiding members and staff across those choppy waters is Lynn Dudley, our senior vice president, global retirement and compensation policy, and Mike Mullins, chair of the Council's Global Benefits Committee. In this episode, host Jason Hammersla talks to Lynn and Mike about how global benefits differ from domestic programs and what major challenges global companies face today.

Even as policymakers discuss and debate the so-called "retirement savings gap," employers and others are starting to take part in a newly-minted coverage expansion tool: the SECURE Act of 2019 birthed the inception of the Pooled Employer Plan (PEP), which allows separate companies employers to team up and share plan administration for their collective employees. On this episode of the American Benefits Podcast, host Jason Hammersla is joined by Rick Jones, senior partner in Aon’s National Retirement Practices group. Together they discuss the state of employer plan sponsorship, barriers to plan formation and how PEPs might improve the environment for plan sponsors.

Paid leave may not be an “employee benefit,” strictly speaking, in the same way that health coverage and retirement coverage are. But providing it has become a significant pressure point for employers, especially as an increasing number of states and localities have erected their own mandates over the last decade. In this episode, host Jason Hammersla talks about this slow-motion explosion of paid leave mandates with one of the nation's foremost legal authorities on the subject: Josh Seidman, a partner in the Labor and Employment department of Seyfarth Shaw, LLP. Together, Jason and Josh talk about the history of state and municipal paid leave statutes, how to think about them in their present form, and what the future holds. We also, somehow, touch on a couple of classic cinematic comedies.  View Josh's bio here: https://www.seyfarth.com/people/joshua-d-seidman.html Council members can access the State Paid Leave Atlas here: https://www.americanbenefitscouncil.org/atlas

The 2020 enactment of legislation to eliminate “surprise” medical billing was not just the most significant health care coverage legislation since the Affordable Care Act. It was also the culmination of a remarkable show of (relatively) swift and bipartisan lawmaking.  Since that enactment, however, the story has taken dizzying twists and turns, with more to come as the regulatory implementation phase gives way to nationwide litigation over the Biden administration's rules. In this episode, host Jason Hammersla speaks to Katie Keith, a member of the research faculty for the Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms, and who has been following the surprise billing saga closely as a contributor to the Health Affairs blog. Keith puts the 2020 law in context, explains how regulatory agencies have sought to implement the law and breaks down the six different lawsuits scattered throughout the country. You can find Katie Keith's writing on Health Affairs' Following The ACA Forefront article series an

Even casual observers know that, over the past several decades, the nation's retirement system has evolved from a predominantly defined benefit system to a predominantly defined contribution system. That said, there are still nearly 47,000 defined benefit plans in the United States, (half of which are insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, or PBGC), covering almost 33 million people and totaling more than $3.2 trillion in assets. On this past New Year's Eve, the PBGC’s Participant and Plan Sponsor Advocate, Connie Donovan, issued the 2021 Annual Report of the Participant and Plan Sponsor Advocate, highlighting the agency’s successes and improvements, as well as areas of lingering concern. (See the report here: https://www.pbgc.gov/documents/2021-annual-report-participant-and-plan-sponsor-advocate) In this episode, Donovan speaks with host Jason Hammersla about the customer experience with PBGC, including what she has characterized as “internal administrative issues” within the agency.

The current labor market is in flux, with many industries still in pandemic recovery while the "great resignation" creating a talent vacuum. Contingent or "nontraditional" work may not be as trendy a topic as it was five years ago, but it could represent a resource for companies seeking to fill important roles. In this episode, host Jason Hammersla speaks to John C. Scott, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts Retirement Savings Project, about recent research on the retirement preparedness of "nontraditional workers" and remaining barriers to their improved financial security.

According to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 6 in 10 adults in the U.S. have at least one chronic disease, while 4 in 10 have two or more. The CDC also estimates that 90% of the nation’s health care expenditures are for people with chronic and mental health conditions. And it’s very likely that the pandemic has exacerbated chronic disease by disrupting access to chronic disease treatment and control services. If we have any hope of lowering health care costs and improving outcomes – which is the crux of the Council’s health policy agenda – we have to address chronic care. On this episode of the American Benefits Podcast, the Council’s Senior Advisor, Health Policy, Katy Spangler speaks to Dr. A. Mark Fendrick, professor of Internal Medicine in the University of Michigan School of Medicine and a Professor of Health Management and Policy in the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, and Paul Fronstin, director of the Health Research and Education Program at EB

Over the past year, the American workforce has undergone a forced evolution, with work environments and habits thrown into chaos. But even before the pandemic, human resources strategy had shown signs of strain under a rigid definition of "productivity."  In this episode, host Jason Hammersla speaks to internationally respected HR consultant Richard Polak, who thinks there is a better way. Polak explains the philosophy behind his new book, Work Smart Now: How to Jump Start Productivity, Empower Employees, and Achieve More, what "compassionate productivity" means and why "work-life balance" is a misnomer.

With the nation in the throes of a lame-duck congressional session and slow-motion presidential transition, the judiciary is the only branch of the federal government that is working smoothly at the moment, even in the wake of seismic change in the U.S. Supreme Court’s personnel. And, as it happens, employee benefits policy hangs in the balance. On November 10, the high court heard oral arguments in California v. Texas, the latest lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. A number of other important benefits cases will also come before the court in the coming months. In this episode, special guest host James Klein, American Benefits Council president, speaks with Meaghan VerGow, a partner and litigator with the law firm of O’Melveny and Myers and a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice David Souter and for D.C. Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland. VerGow and Klein discuss the fate of the ACA, the nuances of ERISA litigation and where the “highest court in the land” really is.

The American Benefits Council is known for its staff continuity, with seven of our 15 staff members having been here for at least two decades. Occasionally, however, the employee benefit gods require new blood and new energy. The most recent addition to the Council family is Katy Johnson, who succeeds the newly retired Kathryn Wilber as Senior Counsel, Health Policy, directing the analysis and advocacy of health policy regulation and litigation. In addition to her tireless work ethic, Katy brings a wealth of experience to the role after stints at the U.S. Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service. In this episode of the American Benefits Podcast, she talks to host Jason Hammersla about the origin of that work ethic, the path that led her to the Council and her favorite break room snack.

While we often focus on the Fortune 500 companies that dominate the world economy, another group of employers plays a fundamental role in the daily lives of millions of Americans: the churches, religious institutions and affiliated organizations that employ hundreds of thousands of clergy, lay workers, and their family members. This is a population with very typical health and retirement needs but also very unique practices and perspectives. Ably representing these perspectives in the advocacy world and in the American Benefits Council is the Church Alliance, a coalition of the chief executive officers of 38 church benefit programs. In this episode, host Jason Hammersla speaks with Reverend Jeffrey Thiemann, vice chair of the Church Alliance and president and CEO of Portico Benefit Services (a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), to talk about what makes church plan benefits so challenging -- and rewarding -- to administer.

The American economy crosses borders, oceans, time zones, cultures, languages and great walls. And therefore, compensation and benefits has gone global, too. For many multinational companies, figuring out how to scale employee benefits for a global population is a critical element of their economic competitiveness. Here at the Council, we’re engaged on global benefits in numerous ways, from functioning as the U.S. chapter of the International Employee Benefit Association (or “IEBA”) to serving as a private-sector advisor to the U.S. delegation to the Organizational for Economic Cooperation and Development. We’re also focused on practical matters for global employee benefit plan sponsors like governance, controlling costs, health plan offerings, employee mobility, mergers and acquisitions and much, much more. In this episode, host Jason Hammersla talks to Mark Azzarello, vice president, global compensation & benefits, for the International Paper Company. Azzarello is a member of the American Benefits Counc

Retirement benefits are obviously one pillar of employee health and financial security, but despite all that employers do the “retirement savings gap” between what people have and should have, continues to grow. One of the biggest barriers to savings is student loan debt, which now exceeds 1.5 trillion in the U.S., while tuition rises 8% year over year. In an effort to help their employees, more companies are now seeing value in helping to allay this burden. The American Benefits Council is part of a broad, multi-stakeholder coalition called Debt Free Tax Free, whose mission is to help employers provide student loan repayment on a tax-free basis, if they want to do so. In this episode of the American Benefits Podcast, Debt Free Tax Free spokesperson Tara Fung (vice president at CommonBond for Business) speaks to host Jason Hammersla about how student debt is different than other kinds of debt, why student loan repayment programs are a good investment for companies – and the government, via the tax code – and

We talk all the time about employee benefits for the evolving global workforce, but the truth is that benefits are important for more than just workers. For example, many covered lives are those of the spouses and children of workers with job-based health insurance. The voice of these families in Washington DC belongs to Frederick Isasi and his colleagues at Families USA, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose stated mission is “the achievement of high-quality, affordable health care and improved health for all.” In May of this year, Families USA launched Consumers First, a broad, multi-stakeholder alliance that seeks to address the fundamental economic incentives and design of the health care system. The American Benefits Council serves on the steering committee of Consumers First. As Families USA’s executive director, Isasi wants to make the American health care system work better for all the money we pour into it. In this episode, Isasi talks to host Jason Hammersla about ways to “build a better healt

The independent workforce – a potent mixture of temp workers, contingent workers, “gig” workers and others – represents anywhere between 4 and 40% of the overall labor market and constitutes an interesting economic challenge: in a nation where employment is central to one’s health and retirement benefits, how do we provide financial security to those who do not have long-term, consistent employment? In recent years, the Council has grappled with this question, setting forth The Five “Cs”: Principles for Policymakers Regarding Benefits and Independent Workers.   Others are approaching the issue from the other direction. Shelly Steward, research manager for Aspen Institute’s Future of Work Initiative, recently co-authored Designing Portable Benefits: A Resource Guide for Policymakers, a paper that defines and describes benefits that are “portable, prorated and universal.” In this episode, Steward talks to host Jason Hammersla about why large employers should entertain and embrace the notion of portable benefits

As a result of the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats will assume control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2019. And while Republicans still control the White House and the Senate, this one change has the potential to derail the whole legislative process, like when one bulb goes out in a string of Christmas lights. So what does that mean for the rest of 2018 and the next two years? That’s a good question for James A. Klein, Council president and political prognosticator-in-chief. In this special podcast episode, Jim speaks with host and loyal underling Jason Hammersla about the waning days of Congress’ Lame Duck session, how much gridlock we can expect on health and retirement policy and what to make of the election day polling results commissioned by the Council. Happy Holidays!