Author: Site Staff

Legislation expected to emerge from the Senate Finance Committee likely won’t include two key planks of a Democrat-backed platform to overhaul the U.S. health care system—a public health plan and a requirement that employers offer insurance.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, emerging from a closed-door meeting of Senate negotiators, said that the committee is strongly leaning against mandating employer-sponsored coverage and establishing “co-op” buying groups in place of a public health plan option.

Snowe and other senators on Monday, July 27, continued to suggest that nothing is final as the committee heads into the heavy lifting of figuring out how to finance such a package, which likely will near $1 trillion over the next decade.

“But the co-op is one of the more prominent options, it’s been fully explored,” she said. “It’s safe to say that it probably is going to remain in the final document.”

Snowe said that rather than force employers to offer health benefits to their workers, the so-called “free rider” initiative has become the favored option. Under the proposal, employers would be required to pay a certain amount if their workers were on Medicaid or got their insurance from the health insurance exchange.

“We still have various options on the table,” she said, but added: “We don’t mandate employer coverage, at least in some of the initial proposals.”

On Monday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs provided details to statements made by administration officials that there is agreement on a solid majority of a health care bill, citing cost savings and increased access to care as just two examples.

Gibbs said “there is broad agreement” that a bill to overhaul the health care system should not add to the national debt and should reduce costs over the long haul and require health plans to accept everyone regardless of whether they are sick.

Even so, two bills to emerge from Capitol Hill include a public option and employer mandate.

The Finance Committee package likely will be in direct odds with those other plans. That sets the stage for what could be a messy melding period, where all three packages will have to merge into one. Senior White House advisor David Axelrod over the weekend said on the television program Face the Nation that there is agreement on 80 percent of a legislative package.

“Everybody I think wants to get something done, and now we are at that final 20 percent,” he said. “We are trying to work through those details.”

Filed by Matthew DoBias of Modern Healthcare, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com

Financial services regulatory reform, including insurance regulatory reform, needs to be dealt with this year, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told a House panel Friday, July 24.

Geithner offered his comments to the House Financial Services Committee in response to a question from Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pennsylvania.

The Obama administration sent a package of draft legislation addressing a broad range of regulatory issues earlier this week, and Rep. Kanjorski asked Geithner how quickly Congress should move on the legislation.

The Treasury secretary replied that the legislation should be treated as a package, adding, “I think it’s very important we move this year.”

Rep. Kanjorski then asked whether failure to establish some sort of “national jurisdiction” over insurance would hamper the administration’s efforts to control systemic risk. Geithner replied that it was “very important” that insurance be part of the larger reform.

The administration has called for the creation of an Office of National Insurance within the Treasury Department as part of its regulatory reform legislative package. Among other things, the office would represent the U.S. in international insurance matters and in some cases could pre-empt state insurance regulators.

The proposal builds upon legislation introduced earlier this year by Kanjorski to create a more limited Office of Insurance Information.

Kanjorski praised the administration’s approach in his opening statement at Friday’s hearing, saying, “I am pleased that the administration calls for establishing an Office of National Insurance, an idea I first originated and for which I have strongly advocated for some time.”

Filed by Mark A. Hofmann of Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

The New York City Fire Department’s reliance on two written firefighter exams constituted employment discrimination against minorities in violation of civil rights law, said a federal district court judge in a ruling Wednesday, July 22.

The federal government; the Vulcan Society Inc., a black firefighters organization; and three other plaintiffs had sued the fire department, claiming the city’s use of the two tests had a disparate impact on black and Hispanic candidates in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn agreed and granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. He noted in his 93-page decision that while 25 percent of the city’s residents are black and 27 percent Hispanic—as of 2007, when the litigation began—they accounted for just 3.4 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively, of firefighters.

The judge said in his decision that it is “natural to assume that the best performers on an employment test must be the best people for the job. But the significance of these principles is undermined when an examination is not fair.”

The city “did not take sufficient measures to ensure that better performers on its examinations would actually be better firefighters.”

The proceedings have been bifurcated, and Judge Garaufis said he will subsequently determine an “appropriate remedy.”

A New York City spokeswoman said the city will decide whether to appeal once the judge issues this second ruling in the case.

In addition, Georgia Pestana, chief of the labor and employment division of New York City’s law department, said in a statement that she disagrees with the decision. She said the city since has developed a new test that was administered in 2007 and that, combined with an outreach effort, has resulted in minorities now constituting 38 percent of the candidates on the passing list.

Judge Garaufis noted in his opinion also that the legal issue before his court was different from the one decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in Frank Ricci et al. v. John DeStefano et al., in which the city of Hartford, Connecticut, had rejected a promotion exam out of fear it would be sued for discrimination by minority candidates.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in that case in favor of 18 firefighters—17 white and one Hispanic—who had brought the suit.

Filed by Judy Greenwald of Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

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