Resource Center

OTHER RESOURCES:

The New York Times has a great interactive summary.

CLICK HERE

Politics Daily gives a “Year-by-Year Rundown of What Happens & When”

CLICK HERE

“Republicans Set for Last Ditch Senate Assault on Reform.”

CLICK HERE

Investopedia.com lists “10 Ways The New Healthcare Bill May Affect You.”

CLICK HERE

CNNMoney.com reports “What health care reform means for your business.”

CLICK HERE

THE TOP 10 IMMEDIATE BENEFITS YOU’LL GET

For consumers, the new health care reform law will immediately:

·	Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;

·	Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;

·	Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;

·	Lower seniors prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;

·	Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;

·	Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;

·	Require plans to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26;

·	Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;

·	Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;

·	Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.

So you’re confused about what health care reform will actually mean for you? Don’t feel like reading the more than 2000-page bill yourself?

We’ll help you sort it all out.

In short, the new law puts us on a path to provide health care coverage for all Americans, empowers consumers over insurance companies and ensures we are moving to reduce health care costs in the long run. Now that the bill has passed the reconciliation process and will now be law, sweeping new policies will be ushered in. Many outlets are trying to tease out what this will mean for the average consumer. We’ve put together some information that will help you to understand it all. We will continue to sift through the many resources that have been providing information about this historic reform so you don’t have to. Check back often for updates.

Welcome to our Resource Center. We know you’re busy and don’t have time to sift through all the information out there that may effect you as a union member or as an employee. So we’ve done all that for you!

If you want to know more about, say, the FMLA, or Whistleblower Protection, or what health care law provisions are currently in effect, you can find that kind of information here. You can also find stuff here like legislative information (ie., Acts, Statutes, Laws, etc.) and other resources that may be useful in your industry or job.

If there is a topic you would like to know more about, or if you are thrown a new challenge as an employee, please be sure to let us know by contacting Lynda, our managing editor.

EEOC’s Americans with Disabilities Act Regulations Available Here

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) revises its Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations to comply with the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA) and it’s now available HERE.

The ADAAA was passed by Congress in late 2008 to make it easier for employees and applicants who allege disability discrimination to establish that they are disabled as defined by the ADA. The NPRM was published in the Federal Register the week of September 15, 2010 and took effect on March 15, 2011.

Summary of Newest Regulations:

·	The NPRM lists specific types of physical and mental impairments that will “consistently” quality as disabilities under the ADA. These include:

Deafness Cerebral Palsy

Blindness Epilepsy

Missing limbs HIV/AIDS

Cancer Severe mental disorders

(such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia)

·	The NPRM clarifies what it means for an impairment to “substantially limit” a major life activity or major bodily function.

·	The NPRM explains how to evaluate impairments when mitigating measures are used.

·	The NPRM lists a number of specific impairments that affect major bodily functions, such as diabetes, cancer, and sickle cell disease.

·	The NPRM lists various types of impairments that may be disabling for some but not others.

·	The NPRM discusses disabilities that are episodic or in remission, such as epilepsy, cancer, and many kinds of psychiatric impairments.

·	The NPRM provides detailed information regarding the types of actions that will or will not constitute “regarded as” discrimination.

·	The NPRM explains how to determine whether impermanent impairments are disabilities.

·	The NPRM clarifies how to determine whether an individual is substantially impaired in the major life activity of working.

Are Companies in Your Area Breaking the Law?

You can now monitor which companies in your area are violating laws on minimum wage, overtime pay, child labor, and safety compliance. Job Tracker is a ZIP-code-searchable database created by Working America containing information on more than 400,000 companies. At Job Tracker you can find out which companies in your area are exporting jobs, laying off workers, endangering workers’ health or are involved in cases of violations of workers’ rights.

Outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries is one of the great hidden economic issues of recent years. It is big business, with multinational corporations actively shifting jobs out of the U.S. and around the globe in search of the cheapest labor.

But it has not escaped the public’s attention! Check out Job Tracker and don’t forget to read the report created by Working America and the AFL-CIO as a companion piece to Working America’s Job Tracker.

Florida’s Whistleblower Act

Employees who expose corruption or wrongdoing on the part of the employer are granted certain legal protections under Florida’s Whistleblower Act. Employees are punished all too often by their employer for:

• objecting to or refusing to commit or participate in illegal activity;

• threatening to “turn the boss in;”

• cooperating with authorities investigating acts of wrongdoing.