Section 4980I, which was added to the Internal Revenue Code by the Affordable Care Act, was originally supposed to take effect in 2018. This tax is commonly called the “Cadillac tax” because it imposes a 40% excise tax on...more
On January 22, 2018, President Trump signed into law H.R. 195 (hereinafter referred to as the “2018 Budget Deal”) which ended the federal government shutdown and funds the federal government through February 8, 2018. In...more
On August 1, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed into law H. 3822, “An Act Further Regulating Employer Contributions to Health Care” (the “Act”). The purpose of the Act is to shore up the finances of the...more
Recently, wellness programs have gained popularity in the workplace. Approximately one half of all employers offer some kind of wellness program. This is due, in part, to the notion that healthy employees are more productive...more
Compliance with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has resulted in increased health benefit costs for many employers. A recent court decision demonstrates that while programs to reduce the number of full-time employees may lower...more
We’ve written a lot about employee health data and the inherent risks of requesting and maintaining this sensitive information. Last week, Forbes published a post arguing that employee health data could be the next business...more
Medical tourism is the term used to describe the movement of patients across international borders in pursuit of medical care and treatment. While in the United States the term is usually associated with Americans leaving the...more
In response to consumer demands for more personalized health care at a lower cost, employer onsite health clinics and retail clinics will continue to be on the rise in 2016, and telemedicine will be crucial to those clinics...more
It should come as no surprise that one of us here at the Navigator has an Apple Watch. (Hint: It’s Kate.) Although everything about the watch pleases its owner, she is a particular fan of the Activity App that tracks calorie...more
Employers are increasingly concerned with the high cost of health care and executives in the C-Suite are beginning to take notice. The Affordable Care Act (‘‘ACA’’) required employers who sponsor group health plans to adopt a...more
In M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, 135 S. Ct. 935 (2015), the Supreme Court of the United States addressed the interpretation of collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) that include post-retirement welfare benefits, such as...more
The Supreme Court cast a ray of sunlight for employers by rejecting the use of a problematic inference in adjudicating claims for retiree benefits brought pursuant to collective bargaining agreements. For many years, the...more
In M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, the United States Supreme Court invalidated a judicial presumption - commonly referred to as the Yard-Man presumption - that union retiree health care benefits are vested for life in the...more
In 2000, M&G Polymers purchased the Point Pleasant Polyester Plant in Apple Grove, WV. At that time, M&G entered into a collective-bargaining agreement and a related Pension, Insurance, and Service Award Agreement (P & I...more
The Supreme Court’s recent unanimous decision in M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, No. 13-1010, 2015 WL 303218 (S. Ct. January 26, 2015) confirms that ordinary principles of contract law should be observed when interpreting...more
The New Year holiday is barely over and 2015 has delivered its first significant development affecting manufacturers and their labor unions. On January 26, 2015, in M&G Polymers U.S.A. v. Tackett, a unanimous United States...more
Last week, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision that gives unionized employers in Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, and Kentucky greater ability to modify medical benefits they provide to retirees pursuant to current...more
For the past quarter century, because of conflicting legal authority, employers who offer health care to their retirees, particularly in a unionized setting, have struggled to determine whether they can alter those benefits....more
In M&G Polymers v. Tackett, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that ordinary contract principles govern whether a collective bargaining agreement vests retirees in health coverage (and the contributions they are required to pay for...more
Ordinary contract principles govern disputes about collectively bargained retiree medical benefits. A Morgan Lewis team secured a major victory for employers when the U.S. Supreme Court, in M&G Polymers USA, LLC v....more
In a decision watched closely by both employers and unions, a unanimous Supreme Court has resolved a thirty-plus year split among the circuit courts on the standards governing claims for retiree health-care benefits arising...more
On Monday, a unanimous United States Supreme Court issued its decision in M & G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, Supreme Court Case No. 13-101, vacating and remanding the Sixth Circuit’s holding that a group of retirees was...more
On January 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States resolved a long-standing dispute between the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and the remainder of the federal judiciary in a case concerning the extent to which...more
In M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned three decades of precedent by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, unanimously ruling that, when no specific provision in a...more
The Supreme Court has unanimously vacated a Sixth Circuit ruling that a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) vested retirees with lifetime medical benefits. M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, No. 13-1010, 2015 U.S. LEXIS 759...more