Posts tagged Affordable Care Act
Commentary: From job lock to job choice: Congress rethinks worker power
September 12, 2025 // On the Hill, Senate HELP Committee Chair Sen. Bill Cassidy’s (R-La.) new Unlocking Benefits for Independent Workers Act is gaining bipartisan attention, and similar efforts are moving forward in the House. Many Democrats and Republicans agree that it’s time to remove what are essentially old legal loopholes that deny access to affordable benefits to millions of self-employed Americans. But there’s something more to the idea: Portable benefits could help all workers to better leverage their own economic power.
Reforms to Mitigate the Wage Effects of Employer Health Coverage
April 28, 2025 // Congress also should go beyond redistribution and reform ESI to slow premium growth in future years. While ESI has many positive characteristics, individual employers struggle to control costs. Even large employers lack the scale to change how medical services are delivered to patients, and many companies do not want to upset their workers with more restrictive health coverage than is the norm among their competitors. The solution to this collective action problem is to establish rules for all ESI plans that push the entire market toward more cost discipline. For instance, ESI coverage should incentivize strong price competition by sharing savings with plan enrollees who select lower-priced suppliers of services. Employers also should offer to their workers at least one health plan which meets strict criteria for high-quality and low-cost care.
Ranking Member Cassidy Slams Biden-Harris Admin Forcing Unionization on Medicare Call Center Employees, Threatening 650 Louisiana Jobs
September 20, 2024 // U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, slammed the Biden-Harris administration for forcing call-center employees to unionize even if they do not want to join a union. These efforts threaten the closure of 12 call centers employing 10,000 employees nationwide, including 650 workers in Bogalusa, LA. Since 2013, Maximus has run 1-800-MEDICARE and the Affordable Care Act call centers on behalf of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In 2022, Maximus was awarded a new nine-year contract. Despite some of the highest customer satisfaction scores in the federal government, the Biden-Harris administration ended their contract with Maximus two years into their agreement and is rebidding the contract with new requirements including a “labor harmony agreement.”
State Offers Taxpayer-Funded Health Coverage to Unionized Home Care Workers
July 16, 2024 // In a new subsidy for the health-care union 1199 SEIU, the Hochul administration is allowing the union’s benefit fund for home care aides to shift some members into taxpayer-funded health coverage through the Essential Plan. The arrangement appears to sidestep the Essential Plan’s eligibility rules, which normally exclude people with access to employer-sponsored health benefits. The deal gives a further boost to the 1199 SEIU National Benefit Fund for Home Care Employees,
Blue Cross shares how much it would pay workers to end strike
November 1, 2023 // The proposal by Blue Cross to United Auto Workers, which represents the striking workers, calls for 23% to 33% in wage increases during the four-year contract, according to the insurer's calculations. It also would shorten the time for Blue Cross workers to progress the salary scale to reach top pay to 10 years, down from what the union says is now 22 years. This decadeslong wait has been an especially sore point for workers on strike, which include those in customer service, billing, claims and maintenance.
PRO Act Debate Dominates Senate HELP Markup
June 27, 2023 // “One piece of legislation under consideration today is the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. It is not pro-worker. The PRO Act is not pro-worker, it is just pro-big union. Being pro-worker means defending the rights of all workers, including those who decide they don’t want to join a union,” Ranking Member Senator Bill Cassidy said in his opening remarks. “It eliminates secret ballot elections for unionization, the gold standard to keep somebody from being put into a corner and intimidated until they vote the way the intimidator wishes them to vote. Secret ballot elections also protect workers from retaliation if they choose a different way.” Senate HELP Republicans offered amendments to the bill, but their recommendations were rejected by the Committee Chair and chief sponsor of the bill, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). The bill passed out of committee and no date has been set for a full Senate vote. This markup comes in the wake of 33 Senate Republicans urging the Biden administration to withdraw Julie Su’s nomination to helm the Labor Department. Su would oversee the enforcement of the PRO Act and other labor policies if she is confirmed.
Street Chaos and Long Hours Push Farmers’ Market Workers to Unionize
April 28, 2023 // Most of the workers at the city’s farmers’ markets are hourly employees who make between $19 and $26 an hour. Some work year-round, but many are part time or work erratic schedules. Few receive benefits or have job security. Now, hoping to improve their wages and benefits and persuade GrowNYC to focus more on their safety, they are forming a union. In interviews, several said they were driven to organize after an especially turbulent period last summer, when market patrons or passers-by spat on them, called them racial slurs or otherwise lashed out.
GOP revives rule allowing lawmakers to target federal agencies, staffers
January 12, 2023 // The rules package House Republicans approved late Monday includes a provision allowing lawmakers to reduce or eliminate federal agency programs and to slash the salaries of individual federal employees. Called the Holman Rule, the measure was proposed in 1876 but was sparingly used until it was reinstated by Republicans in 2017 and then dropped by Democrats two years later. In theory, it could apply to any federal worker or agency — but for now the move is seen as mostly symbolic, as the Democratic Senate could block Republicans from using the provision.