The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that vacated critical portions of the surprise billing independent dispute resolution (IDR) provisions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA, 2021). The case is Texas Med. Ass’n v. HHS, 2024 WL 3633795 (5th Cir. 2024).
Relying on the recent U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright,
Recent lawsuits have emphasized that employers who sponsor employee benefit plans under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) are fiduciaries. This fiduciary duty means that employers owe an increased duty of care to the plans and their beneficiaries. As a result, employers should take certain precautions to avoid lawsuits based on a breach of their fiduciary duty.
Retirement Plans
A Texas federal judge has issued a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) new fiduciary rule, which classifies more retirement advisors as fiduciaries under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The DOL’s rule was set to go into effect on September 23, 2024, until the Court issued its order in Federation of Americans for Consumer
U.S. House Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY) recently proposed during a House Oversight Committee Meeting that pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) should be health plan fiduciaries. As fiduciaries under federal law, PBMs would have to make decisions that lower health plan costs and benefit patients.
According to Langworthy, the lack of a fiduciary duty to health plans is one reason PBMs charge
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently published final regulations that update the required minimum distribution (RMD) rules for qualified plans, including 401(k) plans. The final regulations implement changes made by the SECURE and SECURE 2.0 Acts and generally follow the proposed rules with a few modifications.
Furthermore, the IRS published proposed regulations that address other RMD issues under the SECURE
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has affirmed a lower court’s certification of a class of more than 290,000 workers against several benefits administration companies. However, the Court also ruled that this Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) suit, in which workers allege mismanagement of their fringe benefits, should proceed as an opt-out rather than a mandatory
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently filed a reply brief in a lawsuit brought by insurance industry groups seeking to block new regulations that expand the definition of fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). In its brief, the DOL asked the Court to deny a motion for a preliminary injunction that would prevent the agency from
A Mississippi federal district court has issued a nationwide injunction and stay on some of the new federal regulations concerning Affordable Care Act (ACA) Section 1557, which prohibits discrimination in specified health programs and activities based on certain protected characteristics. The regulations include a new and expanded definition of sex discrimination. The case is Tennessee v. Becerra, 2024 WL 3283887
On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in the case of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 2024 WL 3208360 (U.S. 2024), which overturned its 1984 decision in Chevron USA Inc. v. National Resource Defense Council, 467 U.S. 387 (1984). In its decision, the high Court abandoned the so-called “Chevron Doctrine,” its 40-year-old precedent that
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that upheld a Tennessee state law banning gender-affirming care for minors and overturned a lower court injunction that had prevented the law from going into effect. The Sixth Circuit decision also addressed a similar ban under Kentucky law, but the