Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Tobey Sommer - Suntrust Robinson Humphrey.
Tobey Sommer - Suntrust Robinson Humphrey
I was wondering if you could give us a sense for what your experience was in terms of worksite employee growth or sales and pricing in the middle of that experience you had in Massachusetts. Just maybe that could serve as an example for how things could play out as the healthcare reform emerges.
Paul J. Sarvadi
Sure. Thank you. The Massachusetts situation you know was a good dry run for us to go through. It allowed us to develop you know quickly response to the legislation and provide a package to our clients and prospects about what the requirements were and what had to be done. It reminded me a lot of you know cottage industries that are established through legislation like COBRA, back when it took place, and even immigration reform when you have to figure out what to do and how to go about it. So you know the first thing we saw was there was a high value in just helping people figure it out, something that we could possibly leverage in the marketplace in the event that there’s a mandate to all employers. There’s even the potential for a new product.
Relative to worksite employee growth and pricing you know we are not that large in the part of the country but net marketplace we did just fine. And you know we didn’t do what I would plan to do for healthcare reform. We didn’t you know market heavily around it and you know build a sales campaign around it, which we would do for a broader reform if that gets passed. So we didn’t really leverage that to any great length but we certainly you know saw sales and pricing operate normally through that period.
Tobey Sommer - Suntrust Robinson Humphrey
I was wondering if you could speak to whatever discrete items we already know about that will either flow you know flow out of the P&L in terms of expenses, perhaps those COBRA expenses you’ve been carrying now for a few quarters, or you know 401(k) contributions increasing. Anything that you know of already that’ll likely kind of change in 2010 to the extent that you can comment on it.
Richard G. Rawson
Tobey, this is Richard. I would say that you know we talked about this increase in the COBRA and we talked about the participant enrollment increasing. And now those have kind of flattened out. We kind of feel like that we’ve got a pretty good handle on what the costs are going to be as we go into the next year.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
