Free Republic

New rule lets money managers factor in 'climate change and racial justice' ... Joe Biden is being sued for his scheming to inject politics into retirement accounts – the savings millions of Americans have set aside for their own senior years. ... That would let those managing retirement accounts to use "environmental, social, and governance" factors in their management of others' money. ... "Imposing ESG factors not only violates the Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), which governs the operation of retirement plans and protects the hard-earned savings of millions of employees from mismanagement and abuse, but undermines...

Asset managers like BlackRock are pushing to create ESG 401(k) funds in part because they can charge higher fees. According to Morningstar, the asset-weighted average expense ratio of U.S. "sustainable" funds was 0.61% in 2020 compared to 0.41% for all open-ended mutual and exchange-traded funds and 0.12% for passive funds. This difference can reduce retirement savings by tens of thousands of dollars over a few decades. (snip) All of this amounts to a backdoor rewrite of Erisa, one of the better laws of the last 50 years. Progressives are moving across the Biden administration to steer private capital to implement...

President Trump will today legalize and allow individuals to form Health Associations and purchase insurance across state lines. This is what real free market replacement looks like. Millions of Americans will be eligible to band together to demand less-expensive insurance. The 28 million individuals left behind by Obamacare will now be eligible for inexpensive insurance. The cost to the taxpayer? ZERO! As opposed to the trillion-dollar, “fake” replacements we voted on, this replacement simply legalizes choice. I’ve been working with President Trump and his Cabinet for months to get this done. How will it work? Well, nationwide associations like the...

In an op-ed penned for Breitbart, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) explained that President Donald Trump's upcoming executive order--which would legalize the sale of health insurance across state lines--would come at zero cost for the taxpayer and would enable 28 million people "left behind" by Obamacare to purchase insurance cheaply. According to Paul, the executive order will create "Health Associations," which would allow people to create groups similar to large corporations in order to get lower premiums on their plans. Paul said that these Association Health Plans will "be among the biggest-free market reforms" of the healthcare industry in decades, and is...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday held that church-affiliated hospitals do not have to comply with the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which governs employee pensions. Here are five things to know about the case and the high court's ruling. 1. The Supreme Court agreed in December to take up appeals filed by religiously affiliated hospital systems that were accused of underfunding their employee pension plans. 2. In three lawsuits, which were consolidated into one case, the high court was asked to decide whether the health systems can rely on their church affiliations to avoid complying with ERISA, which...

Last month the Obama administration's Labor Department issued Interpretive Bulletin 2015-01, which tells pension funds what factors to use when choosing investments, including climate change. Only a few tax lawyers noticed, but with U.S. pensions at $9 trillion, this is a gross power grab that will hurt the retirees it claims to protect. This government is essentially saying: Don't you dare invest in anything that causes or is hurt by climate change, or you'll be sued for failing your fiduciary responsibilities. Energy, utilities and industrials are 20% of the market. How can pension funds now own any of them? Pushing...

I’ve written about how Obamacare is a costly boondoggle.I’ve written how it victimizes children, low-income workers, and retirees.And I’ve explained how it exacerbates the real problem in our healthcare system.I’ve even pointed out that there’s something good in the law.But I’ve never bothered to discuss how bad laws usually aren’t as damaging as we think because folks in the private sector often figure out ways to work around some of the most onerous rules created by our overlords in Washington.For example, some employers have figured out how to avoid Obamacare while still providing health insurance.That’s the good news. The bad news is that the crowd in Washington...

With the government facing an escalating crisis of debt it seems they are becoming increasingly creative (devious) with solutions. We have reported previously on the U.S. government’s intimations that they would move to nationalize private retirement accounts (Obama’s Socialist Government Coming For Your Pension ). Now it seems that the Department of Labor and the Treasury Department are beginning to take the steps necessary to do just that. The following excerpts come from an article entitled “US Departments of Labor and Treasury Schedule Hearing on Confiscation of Private Retirement Accounts“: On August 26, the US Department of Labor issued a...

With very little media or public attention, the Obama Administration recently suspended a Bush-era rule to let employees get financial guidance from the advisers managing their 401(k) investments. The provision was designed to give average investors access to the kind of personal financial advice that is typically a privilege of the wealthy. Instead, they are likely to get no guidance at all. The saga began in 2006 when bipartisan reforms to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act opened the door to greater personal financial services directed to the average investor. In 2008, the Labor Department proposed a rule to let...

ACORN appears to have been involved in improper use of pension funds and this lawbreaking may yet land some of its officials in serious legal difficulties. That's according to F. Vincent Vernuccio, formerly a special assistant at the U.S. Department of Labor (and an American Spectator contributor) and editor of EFCAUpdate.org.

PRESIDENT Obama and his allies are shifting their health-reform rhetoric into an attack on the insurance industry -- but their goal remains universal government health coverage. Speaking on Capitol Hill two weeks ago, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called America's health-insurance companies "immoral." "They are the villains in this," she said, referring to the industry's role on health-care reform. "They have been part of the problem in a major way." That broadside was foreshadowed by a subtler Obama shift during his July 22 press conference, when he repeatedly referred to his health-care plan as "insurance reform." Gone was his usual pitch...

The worst thing that can be said about the House health bill is what’s in it. Presumably that explains why Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office zapped as “false and misleading” one of our recent editorials—on the 1974 federal law known as Erisa that lets large businesses offer insurance with minimal government interference. Among the rebuttals is the “fact” that Democrats will give “all American families more choices of quality, affordable health care.”

One by one, President Obama’s health-care promises are being exposed by the details of the actual legislation: Costs will explode, not fall; taxes will have to soar to pay for it; and now we are learning that you won’t be able to “keep your health-care plan” either. The reality is that the House health bill, which the Administration praised to the rafters, will force drastic changes in almost all insurance coverage, including the employer plans that currently work best. About 177 million people—or 62% of those under age 65—get insurance today through their jobs, and while rising costs are a...

One by one, President Obama’s health-care promises are being exposed by the details of the actual legislation: Costs will explode, not fall; taxes will have to soar to pay for it; and now we are learning that you won’t be able to “keep your health-care plan” either. The reality is that the House health bill, which the Administration praised to the rafters, will force drastic changes in almost all insurance coverage, including the employer plans that currently work best. About 177 million people—or 62% of those under age 65—get insurance today through their jobs, and while rising costs are a...

Dying of cancer, Thomas Amschwand did everything he was told to make sure his wife would collect on the life insurance policy he had through his employer. "He was obsessed with dotting every `i' and crossing every `t'," Melissa Amschwand-Bellinger recalled about her husband, who died in 2001 at age 30. But Spherion Corp., the temporary staffing company where Amschwand worked, told Amschwand-Bellinger she would not receive any of the $426,000 in benefits she believed she was due. When she went to court, Spherion succeeded in getting her lawsuit thrown out. The Supreme Court on June 27 refused to review...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez are probably still in the Governor's cigar tent this morning, puffing away on stogies to celebrate the Assembly's 45-31 vote yesterday in favor of their compromise health insurance “reform” bill. It was by far the pair's top goal for 2007. Schwarzenegger desperately wants another fix of national media attention after taking a yearlong victory lap for the state's landmark greenhouse gas emissions law in 2006. Núñez was deeply envious and wants his turn in the spotlight. The result of this desperation has been a farce masquerading as a public debate. No hearings...

When I was browsing Rough & Tumble this morning and saw that Associated Press had come up with its own in-depth analysis of the governor's health care proposal, I was hopeful that the global wire service would take a close look at the vast evidence that the gov's plan was illegal under a 1974 federal law known as ERISA. No such luck. Even though the only state in the union with a law mandating that employers provide or pay for health insurance is the one (Hawaii) with a congressional exemption from the federal law, this fact has barely been acknowledged...

Today, Merck has decided not to pursue mandatory vaccinations of girls using Gardisal, citing - well nothing really, except they knew they were fighting a losing battle. It makes me wonder how much confidence they had in a drug that was touted as "100% effective" in the prevention in cervical cancer. This brings up a broader point, and that is the state of health care in the United States today. In fact, in most instances, the direction of treatment is dictated by the patient's health insurer and not the doctor. The wisdom and the power does not come from any...

Court Rules for Wal-Mart in Maryland Suit By MICHAEL BARBARO A federal appeals court ruled today that Maryland violated federal law when it required Wal-Mart Stores to increase spending on employee health insurance, in a decision that appears likely to end a bitter yearlong legal battle that pitted state legislators, organized labor and health care advocates against the nation’s largest retailer. The 2-to-1 ruling by a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is a major setback — if not a fatal blow — for a nascent campaign, called “fair share,” that sought to move...

SAN FRANCISCO - A group of restaurant owners filed a lawsuit Wednesday that could jeopardize funding for The City’s ambitious plan to provide health care for more than 82,000 uninsured residents. Pushed by Mayor Gavin Newsom and Supervisor Tom Ammiano, the recently adopted health care ordinance was unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors, but largely opposed by the business community, which will have to pay a portion of the program’s estimated $200 million price tag. The program is expected to begin this July. The Golden Gate Restaurant Association, a nonprofit group representing the interests of restaurant owners, allege in...