Olympia Business Watch

Surprise! New rest break requirement in federal health care law

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wasn't kidding when she said "[w]e have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it." Tucked away among the various new tax provisions and insurance industry regulations is an important, but seemingly unrelated, new employment law.  Covered employers will want to take note, and take steps to ensure compliance. 

Section 4207 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act amends the Fair Labor Standards Act to require employers provide rest breaks and facilities for nursing mothers to express breast milk.  The new provision reads:

(1) An employer shall provide--
   `(A) a reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for 1 year after the child's birth each time such employee has need to express the milk; and
  `(B) a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public, which may be used by an employee to express breast milk.
    `(2) An employer shall not be required to compensate an employee receiving reasonable break time under paragraph (1) for any work time spent for such purpose.
    `(3) An employer that employs less than 50 employees shall not be subject to the requirements of this subsection, if such requirements would impose an undue hardship by causing the employer significant difficulty or expense when considered in relation to the size, financial resources, nature, or structure of the employer's business.
    `(4) Nothing in this subsection shall preempt a State law that provides greater protections to employees than the protections provided for under this subsection.'.

Note that smaller businesses, with fewer than 50 employees, are not as such exempted from the provision.  Such an employer may still be covered unless it can demonstrate an "undue hardship" complying with the law. 

Trial Lawyers Basking in Glory of Federal Health Care Reform

Take care victory lap!  Then light up those big stogies. Uncork the champagne and hoist your glasses!   Who needs the Yankees to win the World Series?   Celebrate!  

You got all of the bad stuff out of the federal health care reforms signed into law by President Obama. 

Don't believe me?  Here is what Anthony Tarricone, president of the former American Trial Lawyers Association now called the American Association for Justice, wrote to his members on March 26:

"I am very pleased to report that the health care bill is clear of any provisions that would limit an injured patient’s rights concerning medical negligence claims. While there is a provision for demonstration projects, it provides an absolute opt-out clause for plaintiffs at any time. While some states may embark on demonstration programs we find objectionable, the opt-out provision for plaintiffs minimizes this concern.

In short, this is a tremendous victory for all Americans."

So much for medical malpractice reform!  Looks like business as usual for those who make at least 30 percent contingency fees plus expenses and court costs from suing doctors, hospitals, schools, businesses and government.  It is difficult to see how America will save money on the new health care reforms when the cash keeps flowing through the court room to the lawyers.

Don C. Brunell, President (DonB@awb.org)

 

 

What's the true impact of health-care reform? No one knows

The real problem with the health-care reform law -- and the overall increase in government intervention and attendant federal debt -- is that no one knows the true impact, AWB President Don Brunell writes in his weekly column.

The indications are troubling, however, including the possibility that as many as 35,000 private-sector jobs could be lost due to the federal takeover of the student loan program -- a little-known provision of the health-care bill.

"We will not emerge from the Great Recession until private investors have the confidence to take risks," Brunell writes. "But the expanding role of government and growing federal intervention into private businesses have piled up massive debt and created uncertainty that keeps private investment capital on the sidelines."

Read the full column here.

 

How Do We Pay for What Has Been Created?

Yesterday, on CBS' Face the Nation telecast, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) credited Washington Senator Patty Murray with helping to engineer the Health Care Reform vote in Congress.  In response to Bob Scheiffer's question about the Senate's role in completing the health reform legislation, Durbin, the majority whip in the Senate who is charged with getting the votes, said:

"Well, of course, we've been working on this for a long time. And this last week, Harry Reid, our leader, Senator Schumer, Senator Murray and I have met with, virtually, well, in fact every Democratic senator, face to face so that we understand the importance of this vote."

Ultimately, the massive and costly health care reform bill cleared the House yesterday by a slim 219-212 vote with all Republicans and 34 Democrats opposing it. 

As for Washington's delegation, it voted on party lines with Democrats Jay Inslee, Rick Larsen, Brian Baird, Norm Dicks, Jim McDermott and Adam Smith voting for it and Republicans Doc Hastings, Cathy McMorris-Rodgers and Dave Reichert voting in opposition.

One of the pivotal votes was retiring 3rd District Congressman Baird, who switched from opposing to supporting helping to lift the Democrats past the 216 mark needed for passage.  

The next logical question is "how will we ever pay for this and all of the other new initiatives President Obama and Democrats in Congress propose?"

Consider this observation by David M.Walker with the debt our nation mounting, with new added costs for programs such as health care reforms, and with the entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid rapidly growing.  Walker estimates that the entire federal government budget would go to paying just the interest on our national debt by 2040 if Congress and President Obama continue on the current spending trajectory. 

Walker is now President of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and was Comptroller General of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) from 1998-2008, spanning both Democrat and Republican administrations.  That statement was made three weeks ago to the Business Horizon Retreat sponsored by the National Chamber Foundation.

Don C. Brunell, President, (DonB@awb.org)

P.S.  Dust off those resumes, there will be an estimated 17,000 new openings at the Internal Revenue Service to make sure employers are providing health care for their people in a way in which government prescribes it!

 

Seattle Times is right: Gag rule needs to stay out of state budget

The Seattle Times noticed.

We wondered last week if lawmakers in the House thought no one would notice that they quietly slipped a pared-down version of last year's controversial worker privacy/gag rule bill into the Senate operating budget.

Specifically, the language would prohibit providers of long-term care or services who receive state funding from using the money to "assist, promote, or deter union organization."

The Seattle Times picked up on it, and came out strongly against the idea today in an editorial.

On the surface, it appears to be a small step. "Compared to the whole economy, long-term homes are not large," the Times writes.

But the paper notes that the principle is the same, and the editorial quotes AWB's Kris Tefft: "We view this provision as a crossing of the Rubicon."

You Can't Put One By Butch, Mr. President

With all of the hub-bub in the other Washington over health care reform, Idaho is leading the nation in telling President Obama and Congress, pass health care reforms if you will, but we'll sue you if we have to.

Idaho is leading the charge in a states-rights push to defeat a proposal in Congress that would require people to buy health insurance, a key piece of reforms being pushed by the President.  According to an article in the Seattle Times, Republican Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter used a ceremony Wednesday afternoon to become the first governor to sign into law a measure requiring the state attorney general to sue the federal government over any such insurance mandates.

"What the Idaho Health Freedom Act says is that the citizens of our state won't be subject to another federal mandate or turn over another part of their life to government control," Otter said.

There's similar legislation pending in 37 other states, a point Otter stressed when asked if the bill he signed can succeed, given constitutional law experts are already saying federal laws would supersede those of states in a U.S. District Court fight.  Last week, Virginia legislators passed a measure similar to Idaho's new law, but Otter was the first state chief executive to sign such a bill, according to the American Legislative Exchange Council, which created model legislation for Idaho and other states. The Washington, D.C.,-based nonprofit group promotes limited government.

David Freeman Engstrom, a constitutional law expert at Stanford University Law School, said all these measures face significant legal hurdles. Freeman said there is the question of whether a state has standing to bring the lawsuit, or if that role is better served by an individual who could show they were harmed by the mandate to buy health insurance. Idaho's law faces an even bigger challenge, he said, by setting up a direct conflict with the supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and the President are breaking arms today hoping for House passage on Sunday.  Meanwhile, the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll shows Americans oppose the reforms by a 57-43 percent margin and only 17 percent think Congress is doing a good job. 

A vote in the House is now thought to be Sunday at the earliest. 

Don C. Brunell, President (DonB@awb.org)  

Refinery workers talk about what's at stake with proposed oil tax (video)

We reported yesterday on a group of oil refinery workers who came to Olympia to talk with lawmakers about House Bill 3181, a proposal to raise the state's Model Toxics Control Act tax.

Today, we offer a brief video featuring a few of the workers.

Backers of the tax plan say it would create jobs and raise money to clean up stormwater. But the jobs it would create are temporary, and the jobs it threatens to kill are permanent, family-wage jobs.

"While AWB members recognize the importance of improving water quality in Puget Sound, adding $100 million in new taxes on Washington businesses and citizens at a time when our economy is still trying to recover is a very poor idea," said Grant Nelson, AWB's lead on the issue. "In addition to increasing the cost of fuel at the pump, HB 3181 will lead to lost jobs and jeopardize future efforts to fund much-needed transportation projects."

Boost in state oil tax will cost good jobs, refinery workers tell lawmakers

Keith Vanderbeek left a job in the mining industry a few years ago in search of more stability for his family. Now he's worried that a proposed boost in state oil taxes could cost him his job as a maintenance supervisor at the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes.

"We just couldn't afford it," Vanderbeek said of Tesoro, a relatively small player in the hard-hit oil refining sector. "There's no way we could afford it."

His family couldn't afford it if Vanderbeek lost his job, either.

"The house would be gone," said Vanderbeek, 44, who is married and has a 5-year-old daughter.

Vanderbeek and a few dozen of his colleagues from the Tesoro refinery converged on the Capitol Wednesday to plead their case with lawmakers who are still struggling to balance the state budget and adjourn the special session that began Monday.

Workers from two other refineries were expected to make similar visits Thursday and Friday.

Their message: The state's five major refineries employ 5,000 people either directly or as contractors at an average wage of more than $100,000.

But the nation's refining industry is particularly vulnerable because of reduced fuel consumption, and is poised for a major contraction.

Any increase in the tax burden now could be devastating to Washington's refineries, which already pay far more in taxes than other states.

"I think (Anacortes) would almost turn into a ghost town," said Glenn Hoffman, a 52-year-old data base administrator at Tesoro. "I'm highly concerned."

Voters will see right through 'deem and pass'

If Americans have a low tolerance for Congressional shenanigans now, wait until they get a load of "deem and pass."

Even more so if Congress actually uses it. And that's a distinct possibility according to this morning's news. (The Washington Policy Center also blogs on it here.)

In today's Washington Post, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is quoted as saying she's prepared to pass the Senate health-care reform bill without a vote using the obscure but apparently oft-used legislative procedure. Instead of voting on the Senate version of the bill, House members would vote on a measure that includes fixes to the main legislation. Acceptance of that bill would signify that lawmakers "deem" the omnibus health-care bill to be passed.

According to the Post: 

The tactic — known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" — has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care measure. It is one of three options Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the bill.

"It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know," the speaker said in a round-table discussion with bloggers Monday. "But I like it," she said, "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."

It's hard to know where to start on this exchange. Lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support a measure altering an industry that affects one-sixth of our country's economy should be protected and not held accountable to the people they serve?

Olympian: Is this what passes for transparency?

Add The Olympian editorial board to the list of title-only "ghost bill" detractors.

The newspaper chided Democratic leaders in the state Legislature today for their lack of transparency, noting both the title-only bill that Sen. Phil Rockefeller, D-Bainbridge Island, introduced last month, and the surprise introduction of an income tax proposal in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Regarding Senate Bill 6853, the newspaper wrote: "Introducing the title-only bill was reprehensible. The sponsoring senators should be ashamed of themselves for allowing their names to be used in this sham."

Regarding the income tax proposal, the paper noted that no one had seen it before the hearing on it.

Earlier, the Seattle Weekly called title-only bills a "strange way to run an open government."