American Benefits Podcast

The American Benefits Council is known for its staff continuity, with seven of our 15 staff members having been here for at least two decades. Occasionally, however, the employee benefit gods require new blood and new energy. The most recent addition to the Council family is Katy Johnson, who succeeds the newly retired Kathryn Wilber as Senior Counsel, Health Policy, directing the analysis and advocacy of health policy regulation and litigation.

Ably representing the perspectives of church health and retirement plans is the Church Alliance, a coalition of the chief executive officers of 38 church benefit programs. In this episode, host Jason Hammersla speaks with Reverend Jeffrey Thiemann, vice chair of the Church Alliance and president and CEO of Portico Benefit Services (a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), to talk about what makes church plan benefits so challenging -- and rewarding -- to administer.

In this episode, host Jason Hammersla talks to Mark Azzarello, vice president, global compensation & benefits, for the International Paper Company. In this wide-ranging conversation, Azzarello describes the objectives of the Global Benefits Committee and the upshot of the group’s October 2019 meeting. He also describes International Paper’s distinctive approach to employee benefits policy including global governance, employee financial wellness and electronic disclosure.

One of the biggest barriers to savings is student loan debt, which now exceeds 1.5 trillion in the U.S., while tuition rises 8% year over year. In an effort to help their employees, more companies are now seeing value in helping to allay this burden. In this episode, Debt Free Tax Free spokesperson Tara Fung speaks to host Jason Hammersla about how student debt is different than other kinds of debt, why student loan repayment programs are a good investment.

We talk all the time about employee benefits for the evolving global workforce, but the truth is that benefits are important for more than just workers. For example, many covered lives are those of the spouses and children of workers with job-based health insurance.

Shelly Steward, research manager for Aspen Institute’s Future of Work Initiative, talks to host Jason Hammersla about the independent workforce – a potent mixture of temp workers, contingent workers, “gig” workers and others – and argues why large employers should entertain and embrace the notion of portable benefits.

Episode 28: The People Have Spoken - What Do 2018 Election and Polling Results Mean for Employee Benefits?

Episode 27: Cover Me, I’m Going In - Talking Workplace Health Insurance with AHIP’s Adam Beck

Episode 26: Where Do We Go From Here? Talking Retirement Policy with Mike Barry

Episode 25: Scenes from a Webinar: How Employers are Combating the Opioid Epidemic

Episode 24: "Father of the 401(k)" on the Promise and Problems of Today's Retirement System

Over more than two decades as president and CEO of the National Council on Aging (NCOA), a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people aged 60 and over, James Firman has sought to lead the conversation on on benefits access and economic security for older adults. In this episode, he speaks with host Jason Hammersla about pervasive misconceptions about aging, the evolving role employers can play preparing workers for retirement and the enduring search for “purpose.”

Episode 22: EBRI Little Thing They Do Is Magic: Lori Lucas and the Role of Benefits Research

Episode 21: We Need to Talk About Millennials: Young Americans and the Struggle to Save

Episode 20: Innovations in Health Coverage: Mercer’s Tracy Watts and the Power of a Good Idea