Broker Regulation

Its task complicated by the cost and politics of President Barack Obama's $447 billion jobs plan, a special House-Senate deficit-cutting panel worked Tuesday to find a bipartisan consensus on tackling the government's fiscal woes.

The American Benefits Council spent $243,809 in the second quarter to lobby the federal government on retirement, pension, financial reform, and budget issues related to health and retirement entitlement programs, according to a recent disclosure report.

The National Association of Insurance and Finance Advisors (NAIFA) is hoping the courts will kill the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), but it is keeping up pressure on the medical loss ratio (MLR) front, just in case.

Confronted with an economy that has decidedly underperformed this year, economists are scaling back their growth forecasts for 2011 and next year.

President Barack Obama bluntly challenged Congress on Monday to act now on his new jobs plan, brandishing a copy of the legislation in the Rose Garden and demanding: "No games, no politics, no delays."

Small employers face two tax filing deadlines in the coming weeks in order to take advantage of tax credits offered under health care reform.