What comes after the retiree drug subsidy?

Under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003 and agency guidance that has followed, an employer now faces many options, such as contracting with a supplemental prescription drug plan, offering its own prescription drug plan or eliminating its retiree drug subsidy. This article discusses the complex financial, administrative and communication issues an employer must ponder. For instance, short-term cash savings must be weighed against longer term accounting implications; yet the best financial alternative may come with other baggage that offsets the dollar savings.

Large firms' retiree health benefits before Medicare reform: 2003 survey results.

This survey of large, private-sector employers offering retiree health benefits in 2003 provides a detailed baseline of private retiree health plans on the eve of the most sweeping changes to Medicare since its enactment. Total retiree health costs rose 13.7 percent in 2003, and average retiree contributions to premiums for employees age sixty-five and older retiring in 2003 rose 18 percent.