The Connecticut House of Representatives took a major step toward guaranteeing healthcare coverage to tens of thousands of state residents without health insurance. The House voted largely along party lines, 107-35, for a landmark bill aimed at achieving universal healthcare in Connecticut by creating a public insurance pool that anyone could join, regardless of their health history. The pool would be based on the existing pool for state employees, and is designed to compete with, not replace, private insurance plans.
Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, which laid off about 70 workers last month and made other cuts to regain its financial footing, is now taking other steps to stem a projected $28 million loss this year in its biomedical research operations. The expected deficit is forcing the teaching hospital to give up lab space in two buildings and consolidate its research at a single site. Hospital officials blame the projected loss on lower-than-expected funding from the National Institutes of Health and a costly lease arrangement it made about five years ago at a new research building.
Four HIV-positive patients whose records were left behind on an MBTA train by a Massachusetts General Hospital employee are suing the hospital, contending their privacy was breached. In March, the hospital notified 66 patients who received care at its Infectious Disease Associates outpatient practice that billing records bearing their names, Social Security numbers, doctors, and diagnoses had been lost by a manager who was riding the train. Four of the 66 patients filed a breach-of-privacy suit in Suffolk Superior Court against the hospital and the unidentified billing manager.
Republican lawmakers stepped up their opposition to Democrats' plans for overhauling the nation's healthcare system by introducing legislation that would give Americans tax credits to pay for health insurance. The plan offers a glimpse into how the GOP is mobilizing against Democrats' effort to create a public insurance plan and to require companies to provide or otherwise pay for health-insurance coverage for workers. Republican lawmakers say such measures would bureaucratize the nation's health system and stifle job creation.
The Society for Human Resource Management has come out against a proposal that would require companies with 15 or more full-time employees to provide seven days of paid sick leave each year. Instead of the mandates set down in the recently introduced Healthy Families Act, SHRM says Congress should craft consensus legislation on workplace flexibility.
"We believe that employers should be encouraged to offer paid leave as part of every full-time employee's benefit plan – but we oppose an inflexible, one-size-fits-all government mandate," says Laurence O'Neil, SHRM President and CEO. "Our goal is to seek legislation that will encourage paid leave, but not discourage the creation of quality new jobs."
The bill is sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-MA. Inquiries to his office were not immediately returned.
SHRM says the Healthy Families Act would also lock in existing leave benefits and limit or eliminate an employer's flexibility in making even minor adjustments in leave provisions. O'Neil says this could be a major burden for employers that tailor leave policies to meet an individual employee's needs. Any federal mandate that restricts an employer's ability to offer such voluntary leave policies could work against employees.
SHRM says a federal policy on workplace flexibility should:
Encourage employers to offer uniform and coordinated paid leave;
Create administrative and compliance incentives for employers who meet the leave standard;
Provide certainty, predictability and accountability for employers and employees; and
Allow for different work environments, industries and organizational size.
Due to multiple media channels, new technologies, and consumers who have a short attention span, traditional communications are no longer sufficient for creating loyal fans or bringing a brand to the forefront. This new reality demands a new approach to engaging consumers, and this is where corporate social responsibility as branded content comes in.