Pension Reform Case Study

The years 1996 to 1997 brought about another wave of health care reform for Massachusetts. The expansions in 1996 and 1997 resulted in an increase in the number of people enrolled in MassHealth (Massachusetts Medicaid program). As well, one of the key elements of Massachusetts’s safety net is

For an extended period, state and local policymakers and labor unions ignored as the growing public pension obligations became an increasingly fiscal burden. The pension problem was enormous and associated with irresponsible financial practices connected to defined benefit pension plans (Thompson, 1980). Following this, the state of California and its local government have a problem of unfunded public pension liabilities that was estimated to be around $583 billion. Because of this, as Lu and Otto (2003) claim, several cities in the state have had a difficult duty of balancing budgets in a balanced way to the public employees and taxpayers, while continuing to provide public services to the

The Massachusetts model is considered by many to be the blueprint for the national health care reform. It was introduced in the year 2006 and was fully implemented by 2010. The state previously had a “free care” pool through which it funded the health care given to people who were uninsured and ineligible for Medicare, Medicaid and private health insurance. The then federal government insisted that either the state reduced this funding or it lost $385 million in Medicare funds (Lizza, 2011, June 6). The uninsured population in the state at that time was 10.9%, which was much less than the national average of 15.8% (Day & Nardin, 2011) making the state relatively more suitable for any health

Due to variations in state public policy, several different independent variables will be used to examine the extent to which states have enrolled Medicaid recipients in managed care. The elderly and disabled require skilled nursing care, which has proven very expensive. Since the Boren Amendment, interpreted by the Supreme Court, refused to allow states to freeze their reimbursement rates to nursing homes and hospitals, states have seen the cost of long-term care rise rapidly. As the Baby Boom generation ages, it is expected

On August 17, 2006 the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (the Act) was signed into law. The Pension Protection Act ("PPA") [P.L. 109-280] originated as a single-employer defined benefit pension funding reform bill to strengthen the DB pension system. However, it is best known for the number of provisions to enhance 401(k) and 403(k) plans, especially the auto enrollment feature. Among other noteworthy provisions are those intended to remove legal obstacles to, and create new incentives for, automatic enrollment 401(k) and 403(b) plans. It represents one of the most comprehensive pension reform legislation since ERISA was enacted in 1974. The Act has lead to many companies changing the way their plans are designed and administered, amend plan documents, increase plan funding, and make additional plan disclosures in regulatory filings and to plan participants. The Act made many sweeping changes but for the sake of brevity, only the automatic enrollment plan made by employers on the behalf of its employees is addressed in this report as to the rationale behind the passage of the PPA. Even though the provisions generally apply both to 401(k) and 403(b) plans, for explanatory purposes all references will refer only to 401(k) plans.

Riordan’s top retirement plan is 401(k) savings plans with the one goal in mind, helping an employee retire, (Martocchio, 2009).

The organization that I have decided to research is the U.S. Department of Agriculture, human resource management policies and procedures. The Department of Food and Safety agency is responsible for the nation’s poultry, meat and eggs. Therefor this agency recruits veterinaries, human resources specialist, contract specialist, administrative officer, and public health analyst. This paper will analyze the retirement the federal government. The federal government retirement policy needs to be changed. The federal government has two types of retirement plans, the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) which went into effect in 1986 and the Civil Service Retirement Act which went into effect in 1920. The Civil Service Retirement Act

The Sears Canada situation has put the former and current employees at the risk of not getting their full pensions and other benefits paid as promised by the company. This problem was raised due to the underfunding of the pension plan by the company. this deficit has but over 16,000 former and current Sears Canada employees at risk of not getting their full pensions. (MacDonald, 2017) This is due to the pensioner not having any priority’s when a company goes through their bankruptcy process. In order to help those who are affected by this, the government should take actions towards protecting and preserving the pension of the employees. The help of the government would help reduce other problems that will arise due to employees not getting their full pension. Such problems that would arise are; the burden on taxpayers to pay for the loss of the employees and how it is unfair and unethical for the employees to suffer from the company’s faults.

Commenter argues that the new rule to apply for pension benefits will result in unnecessary delays that will result in denials for veterans and beneficiaries. VA will make the application process easier for veterans and beneficiaries to apply and know the qualification on how to receive VA pension benefits.

For the jurisdiction of British Columbia, the Registered Pension Plan member contributions are due within thirty days after the end of the month in which the deductions occurred. In practice, there may be agreements with pension administrators that require earlier and/or more frequent remittances. The monies withheld from the employee and the employer contributions must be held in trust prior to remittance. The Registered Pension Plan types would be either a Defined Benefit Plan or a Defined Contribution Plan.

The Central States Pension Fund is faced a serious problem, because of the financial crisis, they can not pay for the retirees pension as much as in the past, which means the Fund don't have enough money to pay all of it. There are two choice they can make: One, if the Fund continues to pay for retirement pension at current rate, the project of company will out of money and end in 2025. And if this happen, the Fund would not be able to pay the pension for retirees and that would impact 407,000 retirees. The another one choice is the Fund cuts approximately 23% pension, that would have 50% percent of chance can let the company remain operation for 30 years. Fortunately, that would not influence the future retirees' pension, but would have a negatively impact of current retirees.

The first policy change, abolishing the actuarial reduction, would tend to lower the average retirement age. The actuarial reduction is intended to make workers approximately indifferent between

The poverty rate amongst the elders in Korea’s especially aging population is very high, it has been a very high contributor to income inequality over the past few decades . As of OECD reports in 2011 have indicated 49 percent of the population above the age of 65 lived in relative poverty. The figure in Korea is extremely high compared to the OECD average which is 13 percent. The BOAP was introduced relatively late in 2008 which covers roughly about 70 percent of the population with the benefit of 97 thousand KRW which is 16 percent of the minimum cost of living in 2014. Although there is a relative generosity in covering a large number of population for the welfare program, the BOAP has not been able to prevent a significant rise of elderly poverty rate and the GINI coefficient since 2007 .

History of Pension Funds In tradition, welfare of the elderly was the role of the family unit. However, during the twentieth Century the population began to grow in the UK and USA and the “elderly became a serious problem that only the apparatus of the state was able to help” [1] Problems raised when the state was no longer able to provide support to the elderly due the elderly becoming older, improvements with medicine, improvements in general standards of living and so on, which led to the role of financial institutions. I.e. the creation of pension funds which has now become one of the largest financial institutions in the USA and UK.

Unlike Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam, the Philippines have a relatively complicated benefit calculation. Replacement rates were too high for non-high earners, up to 78.1% for an average earner, therefore not achieving the pension goal of providing old-age financial security. Learning from the Philippines, we see that actuarial valuations need to be done every few years to review the sustainability of the pension fund and