Health Wonk Review and other noteworthy news briefs

March 18th, 2010 by Julie Ferguson

It’s Health Wonk review week, and Minna Jung serves up the March Madness of both the basketball court and the health care reform process in this week’s Health Wonk Review. Visit this week’s post at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s blog The Users’ Guide to the Health Reform Galaxy.
Employer trends

  • Laura Petrecca of USA Today writes that employers are increasingly using technology to track and monitor employees. They do so for a variety of reasons, including monitoring to ensure productivity; to ensure that trade secrets are protected, and to ensure maintenance of professional and lawsuit-proof workplaces. Next month, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case that will explore privacy rights for employees when using employer-supplied devices. View some of the tech monitoring techniques that are being used.
  • NPR has been running a series on work-life balance and the increasing number of employers who are turning to flexible work schedules. You can read more about it at HR Web Cafe: Work-Life Balance and Flex Work.
  • Employee compensation costs – Private industry employers spent an average of $27.42 per hour worked for total employee compensation in December 2009 (PDF), according to a report issued last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Wages and salaries accounted for 70.8% of these costs, while benefits accounted for 29.2%. Of the benefits, 8.2% were for the cost of legally mandated benefits.

CT crackdown – Connecticut employers take note – Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is planning a crackdown on workers that are misclassified as independent contractors. “Among the commission’s recommendations: increase the penalty from $300 per violation to $300 a day per violation, strengthen criminal sanctions against misclassification and jointly investigate misclassification complaints with other state agencies.”
Immigrant workers – In light of a recent Iowa Supreme Court ruling in a case involving a nonresident alien, Roberto Ceniceros posts about immigrant workers and benefit complexities. To stay current on other related issues, we refer you to Peter Rousmaniere’s Working Immigrants.
Toxic chemicalsThe Environment News Service writes that the Obama administration is giving mixed signals on right-to-know for toxic chemicals. On the one hand, to increase transparency, the EPA is providing free web access to the Toxic Substances Control Act Chemical Substance Inventory. This is the first time that employers will have access to thousands of industrial chemicals in the agency’s database. But in a move that seems at odds with the administration’s stated commitment to transparency, OSHA is proposing a reduction in the hazard warning information that chemical manufacturers must provide to workers, customers and other users. OSHA denies that it is weakening protections, and according to the article, claims that it is “merely trying to conform with global labeling rules and that manufacturers often disagree with the cancer hazard evaluations and other advisory information.”
Medical marijuana – We suspect we’ll be seeing more stories like this: Walmart fires Michigan man for using medical marijuana.The store fired 2008 “Associate of the Year” Joseph Casias when he failed a drug test. Casias has sinus cancer and a brain tumor and has an authorized medical marijuana card. He uses marijuana to control pain at night, but claims that he is never under the influence at work. (See our past posts on this topic: The current buzz on medical marijuana and the workplace and One toke over the line.)
Kemper runoff – Hard to believe that it’s been six years, but the Kemper runoff saga is nearing conclusion, according to Business Insurance. Some call this “one of the most successful runoffs in history,” but not all agree. Some are waiting for liquidation to see if they will fare better than the reported 25 cents to 50 cents on the dollar that claims are being settled at:

“A decision to wait for liquidation or settle beforehand should depend on a cost benefit analysis that includes evaluating whether state guaranty funds for workers compensation claims are likely to pay for the majority of a policyholder’s claims, several experts said.

Workers comp claims account for the largest portion of Kemper’s outstanding liabilities, totaling about $600 million, Ms. Veed said.

But some states have net-worth exclusions, which eliminate guaranty fund coverage for companies above certain net worth levels, which range from $10 million to $50 million depending on the state, several sources said.”

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