Governor of Nevada Vetoes Single-Payer Legislation

Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval has vetoed legislation that would have established a single-payer Assembly Bill 374 would have expanded a Medicare-type health care insurance plan. coverage to provide health care coverage to all Nevada residents.

Nevada Governor
Brian Sandoval

State sponsored plans are under consideration as the Republicans are attempting to repeal and replace the Federal Affordable Care Act (ACA). While the US House of Representatives has passed a replacement bill for ACA  the US Senate has not yet acted.

The patchwork of private workers' compensation insurance coverage throughout the United States has been challenged by delays in medical delivery, an onerous litigation process,  difficult CMS Medicare  Secondary Payer issues and soaring costs. Workers' Compensation could be subsumed into a state-based universal health care plan.

A California bill SB 562 has advanced. The proposed legislation would establish a single-payer system in California. It would establish a Medicare-for-all type coverage for all residents of California. Under the concept, a government plan would replace private insurance for payments to all physicians and hospitals.

The Promise of State Initiatives to Prevent Long Term Work Disability

Every year, millions of Americans suffer from medical conditions that affect their ability to work. This puts them at risk of losing their jobs or being forced to rely on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). States could help many of these workers stay in their jobs, but promising options for doing this remain largely untested. The five states with state-mandated short-term disability benefits— California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island—are promising settings for such tests.

Seminar: Feb 23, 2017 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. Location Online

On February 23, from 12:00–1:30 p.m. (ET) Mathematica’s Center for Studying Disability Policy (CSDP) will host a live webinar. A panel of experts from Mathematica, Sedgwick, and the state of California will discuss the promise of state-based systems from the perspectives of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners. Reporting on studies of state disability insurance (SDI) and workers’ compensation (WC) systems in California and Rhode Island, our speakers will present new evidence on:

• The risk of SSDI entry for SDI and WC claimants
• The extent to which initial data on the characteristics of SDI or WC claimants can be used to predict their risk of entering SSDI
• The availability and utilization of return-to-work supports in state SDI and WC systems
• How states, including those without SDI, could help workers keep their jobs, maintain their economic independence, and save billions of taxpayer dollars

The panel of experts includes:
David Mann, Mathematica
Yonatan Ben-Shalom, Mathematica
David Stapleton, Mathematica
Teresa Bartlett, Sedgwick CMS
Jennifer Richard, California Assembly Labor and Employment Committee

Consequences of Increasing the Minimum Wage

The national wave toward raising the statutory minimum wage to $15.00/hour is going to have major consequences for the ailing national network of workers' compensation programs. Not only is it going to increase benefits for injured workers that are calculated on wages, but it is also going increase much needed premium dollars for insurance companies whose premiums are based on payroll costs.

NY Gov Andrew Cuomo
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How it happened is an interesting story authored by Steven Greenhouse in an article appearing in the NY Times:

"BACK in November 2012, when Alterique Hall, an $8-an-hour McDonald’s cashier in New York, joined 200 fast-food workers in the first one-day strike for the Fight for $15 campaign, many scoffed at their demand for $15 an hour as pie in the sky. Frustrated with his meager pay, Mr. Hall said, “It’s time for a change.” 

"Three and a half years later, that change is starting to arrive. Last Monday, Gov. Jerry Brown of California announced a deal with state lawmakers to raise California’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022 — a move expected to lift pay for five million workers. And late Thursday Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York reached a deal with legislative leaders to adopt a $15 minimum wage in New York City in 2018 and in its suburbs in 2021, with a $12.50 minimum in upstate New York.

 Calif. Gov Jerry Brown
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Once California and New York go, it is likely that more states will follow,” said Paul K. Sonn, general counsel of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for low-wage workers. (Shared from nytimes.com)

Click here to read the entire article, How the $15 Minimum Wage Went From Laughable to Viable.

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• Home is an Odyssey For The Aging Population (idoctor-health.blogspot.com)
• Fast food workers plan nationwide strike for December 4 (idoctor-health.blogspot.com)
• Thousands Fast Food Workers Strike in 190 Cities, Demand $15 an Hour Wage (idoctor-health.blogspot.com)
• McDonald's charged with abusing workers over wage protests (idoctor-health.blogspot.com)
• Fast-Food Workers Intensify Fight for $15 an Hour (idoctor-health.blogspot.com)
• Fast food workers meet in suburban Chicago to plan escalation of demands for higher pay, union (idoctor-health.blogspot.com)