GOP May Cap Insurance Tax Break as ACA Repeal Bill Nears
Republicans are considering capping the U.S.'s tax break on job-provided health insurance, a major change to the tax system that could be used to finance their efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. The result would be higher taxes on anyone with an employer health plan worth more than the cap Republicans set. Those benefits are now tax-free. A similar idea was proposed by Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat, during debate over the Affordable Care Act, and went nowhere. Obamacare already includes a levy on high-cost health insurance plans, known as the Cadillac tax, that begins in 2020. Republicans didn't say where they would set the cap.

Data Points: The International Workforce in American Healthcare
U.S. healthcare providers rely on millions of clinicians and other workers from around the globe, including the seven Muslim nations whose citizens are temporarily barred from entering the country.

Steven Brill: Stay in a Hospital, Pay the CEO $56 a Night
Norman Roth has a great job. He's the CEO of the relatively small Greenwich Hospital in southern Connecticut, and for each night patients stayed at his hospital in 2015, he got paid $56.40. That's the most extreme case I've seen in my years of writing about the health care economy, where executives are paid far more than they are in just about any other industry. But it's hardly the only case of sky-high hospital CEO salaries. And it's a good reminder that the debate over the future of Obamacare has to do with insurance to cover the costs of an industry that operates in a kind of alternate universe compared to the rest of the American economy.

AHA CEO: Steven Brill's Article on Hospital CEO Pay 'Uninformed and Unreliable'
The American Hospital Association has penned a letter in response to a recent article by lawyer and journalist Steven Brill on hospital CEO pay. "'Stay in a hospital, pay the CEO $56 a night,' highlighting Steven Brill's short sighted attempt to correlate CEO compensation to patient days is both uninformed and unreliable," writes AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack. "CEO compensation for tax exempt hospital system executives is determined by individuals with no conflict of interest and who are charged with protecting the best interest of the hospital system and the community it serves. Moreover, [Mr.] Brill's methodology of tying compensation to inpatient volume utterly fails to recognize that hospital systems are much more than the sum of their inpatient beds."

Modern Healthcare: Send Entries for Best Places to Work in Healthcare
Modern Healthcare is accepting entries for its Best Places to Work in Healthcare awards for 2017. The program identifies the top workplaces in healthcare, those that go above and beyond to support their staff, empowering them to provide patients and other customers with the best possible care, products and services. The deadline is Feb. 24. Register today.

SAVE THE DATES

HIMSS 2017 Annual Conference & Exhibition
February 19 23, 2017
Orlando, FL

ASHHRA 53rd ANNUAL CONFERENCE AND EXPOSITION
Partnering Across the Continuum of Care

63rd Annual Employee Benefits Conference
Sponsored by Int'l Foundation for Employee Benefit Plans
October 22 - 25, 2017
Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, NV

10 Companies with Innovative Benefits Packages
From retirement and health plans to unlimited paid time off, work flexibility and hot new benefits such as student loan repayment and professional development, these 10 companies are leading the pack when it comes to innovation in the field: Netflix, Michelin, BASF, JPMorgan Chase, Boxed, PwC, Comcast, Aflac, Microsoft and La Macchia. Here's what they are doing differently

[FROM http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Healthcare_Manager/Salary]


From PayScale: 7 Ways ACA Repeal Will Affect You (Even If You Get Insurance Through Work)
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order directing federal agencies to opt out of requirements of the Affordable Care Act wherever possible. Whether this will create much immediate impact is up for debate. However, given that Congress is already on board with ACA repeal, it's likely only a matter of time before Obamacare is dismantled, effectively or actually. Here are just a few ways ACA repeal might affect you:

1. Your Employer Might Not Offer Health Insurance Anymore
2. Preexisting Conditions Could Keep You From Getting Coverage
3. The End of Coverage for Dependents Until Age 26
4. The Return of Lifetime Caps
5. More Out-of-Pocket Costs
6. Access to Birth Control
7. You Might Wind Up Stuck in Your Job