Consolidated Appropriations Act 2021
Impact on Employee Benefits
Join Lisette Sell and Christine Hawkins of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP for a discussion of the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA). The lengthy CAA legislation includes a number of provisions impacting employer-sponsored employee benefits—some relating to the ongoing pandemic and others with broader and long-lasting applicability. In this webinar, Lisette and Christine will break down the impact to health, welfare, and defined contribution plans, including special relief for health and dependent care FSAs, protections from surprise billing, transparency requirements under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, extended employer assistance for student loans, partial plan termination relief, retirement plan disaster relief, and COVID-19 plan distributions.
Lisette Sell is a member of the firm's employment services group where she focuses her talents on ERISA and employee benefit matters. Her vast experience over her 30 years in practice includes advising employers on documentary and operational compliance for their retirement plans and health and welfare plans.
Lisette understands the constantly changing legal landscape that a company's human resources face and provides practical legal guidance on how to adhere to local, state, and federal employee benefit laws and regulations, and how to correct instances of noncompliance.
Christine Hawkins assists clients who are restructuring their employee benefits and compensations programs to address changes in law, minimize risk and offer greater investment flexibility. She regularly advises companies on the wide range of employee benefits and ERISA matters. As part of her practice, she drafts plan restatements, amendments, 204(h) notices and summary plan descriptions.
Christine works with companies in healthcare, banking and finance industries, as well as government agencies and nonprofit organizations, handling benefits plans in both union and non-union contexts.
Long Term Care
Christine McCullugh will share information on how long-term care insurance can play a significant role in your clients’ overall financial plans. The odds are now 2 in 3 three that any one of us will need long-term care, and there are limited ways to pay for it. At a current estimated cost of about $90,000 per year for nursing home care, the accounts of even the most diligent savers will be quickly depleted. And in cases where an individual spends down assets to the point that Medicaid takes over, there are implications for the patient’s heirs. States increasingly pursuing the recovery of amounts paid by Medicaid for LTC patients whose estate still includes the family home; it is becoming more and more common for them to be required to sell the house in order to repay those expenditures. Loved ones for whom the patient intended to leave an inheritance may never see what the patient worked so hard to accumulate.
But there is great news in this new market. Plans are better than ever, and now is a great time to bring them to your clients and explain why.
Christine McCullugh is a nationally-known expert in long-term care insurance. She is President of LTC Solutions, Inc. (www.ltc-solutions.com), the group and individual LTCI brokerage she founded in 1996.
Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, LTC Solutions’ 30+ employees advise carriers, brokers and employers on group LTCI. Christine is a speaker, consultant, and member of AHIP’s Long-Term Care Curriculum Review Committee, offering insights that are helping shape the future of LTC insurance.
She is pleased to provide expertise and partnership opportunities to colleagues desiring a deeper understanding of this unique market and help presenting it to their employer clients.
SCHEDULE:
8:45 am - Registration/log in
9:00-9:50 - Consolidated Appropriations Act 2021: Impact on Employee Benefits
9:50-10:00 - Break
10:00-10:50 - Long Term Care
10:50 - 11:00 - Questions & Answers
REGISTRATION:
Online registration closes at 2:00 pm March 10. Prior to the event, an email will be sent to paid registrants with the link to the webinar. Questions contact WP&BC Seattle Chapter via email: info@wpbcseattle.org, or by phone 206.653.7259.
A Certificate of Attendance is available upon request.
No refunds after March 10 deadline.
FEES
$25 per members; $35 per non-members and guests. WP&BC strives to bring timely and topical programs to members and colleagues. Please do not share the webinar link with others which you will receive a day prior to the event.
DATE:
Thursday, March 11, 2021
LOCATION:
Webinar - email will be sent with link to the webinar.