Earlier this year, I posted on the Health Families Act, an act that would mandate employers provide paid sick days to their employees. According to this story in the L.A. Times, Congress is set to consider this legislation next week.
The article does not name the act, but the description in the article is the Health Families Act. This act was originally introduced by Senator Kennedy, but is appears to have been taken up by Senator Dodd. According to Thomas (the Library of Congress' web site) the Healthy Families Act is still in committee. This article may simply mean the Committee will get to the act next week. This would be the next step in moving the legislation through the Senate.
You should know, that there is an identical bill (H.R. 2460) in the House as well as another bill that is more narrowly tailored to time off for employees with contagious diseases.
This legislation will require employers to provide one hour of paid sick time for every thirty hours worked. The paid sick time must be provided to full time and part time employees. Obviously, for providers that do not already provide this benefit, the cost of employees will go up if this legislation passes. Increasing the cost of caregivers at a time when Congress is considering massively cutting reimbursement is not a very good idea. I will try to keep you posted on what happens with this legislation.
You may recall, that this is the third time this bill has been introduced into Congress and it still has not passed. It seems much more likely to pass this time, although that is an observation made without any special insight, just looking at party-line numbers and the number of co-sponsors for both bills. Once more, it is a good idea to start looking at the costs and how this would impact your business so that you can start educating your Congressional representatives. (You ought to be getting good at this by now.)
Have a great weekend!
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