Stat Facts: Health Care Members Lobby for Workplace Violence Legislation

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by: United Steelworkers

Washington, D.C. - April 22, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- USW Health Care Council members walked the halls of Congress earlier this month to gain support from representatives and senators for workplace violence protection legislation.

The bills, H.R. 7141 and S 851, direct the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue a standard requiring health care and social service employers to write and implement a workplace violence prevention plan.

Valencia Davis, a nurse assistant at the Kaiser Permanente Riverside Medical Center in Calif., participated in the lobby day because the issue is one that, unfortunately, dominates her work.

“When we’re on the floor, it’s dangerous, especially if you’re the only one on the unit,” Davis, of Local 7600, said. “The violence is both physical and mental, and we get it both from patients and family members.”

Congressman Joe Courtney (CT-02), the representative who introduced the bill originally in November 2018, believes health care workers like Davis and her fellow union members are long overdue for workplace protections.

“This legislation compels OSHA to do what employees, safety experts, and Members of Congress have been calling for years – create an enforceable standard to ensure that employers are taking these risks seriously, and creating safe workplaces that their employees deserve,” Courtney said last fall.

James Schavers, of Local 183 in Apple Valley, Calif., also joined the union delegation to D.C. A nursing assistant at St. Mary Medical Center for seven years, Schavers became involved with his local union in order to use his voice to create change.

“When I realized we could actually get involved, I went from wanting knowledge to wanting to actually help people,” he said. “One way to do that was telling members of Congress about my and my coworkers’ experiences.”

Schavers has been the victim of violence from patients several times, though it’s his coworkers he worries about most. Training, accountability, and reporting from the hospital are his priorities for his local’s next negotiations, scheduled for summer 2020.

“The hospital expects you to stop patients if they lash out and strike you or rip out their IV’s,” Schavers said, “but they don’t provide proper training or resources. Then if you do experience violence, they expect you to come back to work the next day even if you’re in pain.”

The introduction of the bill and the calls for its support are a part of the larger movement within the health care industry from workers like Schavers who are demanding dignity and protection on the job. Workplace violence, an epidemic often experienced in silence by victims, is finally being taken seriously by those who can help make a difference, including political leaders.

A 2016 GAO study reported that rates of violence against health care workers are up to 12 times higher than rates for the overall workforce, and 70 percent of nonfatal workplace assaults in 2016 occurred in the health care and social assistance sectors. The bill, introduced with the support of 27 members of Congress, aims to reduce these rates.

Davis, who has been a nursing assistant since 1984, is hopeful about the legislation’s prospects for passage after her long day of lobbying on Capitol Hill.

“Everyone we talked to seemed to agree with us,” she said. “I definitely enjoyed the experience, too, and would love to do it again.”

SENATE APPROVES SURPRISE MEDICAL BILL PROTECTIONS

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by: Texas Senate

Austin, TX - April 22, 2019 - (The Ponder News) -- Patients wouldn't have to worry about receiving bills for medical procedures they thought were covered by their insurance under a measure passed by the Senate on Tuesday. Surprise billing happens when a person goes to a medical facility within their insurance network, only to find out later that care was provided by contracted providers who aren't in their network. Since these contractors bill the insurance company at out-of-network rates, the patient can find themselves responsible for hundreds or thousands of dollars in medical expenses that they thought were in-network. What should happen, says North Richland Hills Senator Kelly Hancock, is that the insurer and health care providers should work this out between themselves, and leave the patient out of it. His bill, SB 1264, would protect patients from surprise billing while providing arbitration procedures to resolve billing disputes between providers. Following passage of the bill, Houston Senator Paul Bettencourt commended his colleague for his work on the bill. "People need help with this, because it's not just the money, it's the tremendous amount of time it takes to straighten these problems out," he said.

Under the bill, if a patient receives care at an in-network facility, they are only responsible for the expected co-pays, deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses they agreed to when they joined their insurance plan. If there is a dispute between an insurer and a healthcare provider, the bill provides an arbitration system modelled after the one used by Major League Baseball. In this system, each party presents an offer to an impartial third-party arbitrator, and he or she picks the most reasonable offer. This is intended to discourage low- or high-ball offers, and incentivizes parties to move towards the middle to avoid getting far less, or paying far more, than they would like. The bill would only apply to state-regulated insurance plans. Another bill by Hancock, SB 1530, would allow purchasers of self-funded plans regulated at the federal level under ERISA to opt-in to currently existing mediation procedures at the Texas Department of Insurance.

Also Tuesday, the Senate gave tentative approval to a bill that would prohibit cities, counties and other local governmental entities from using public funds to hire professional lobbyists. Edgewood Senator Bob Hall thinks it's wrong when local governments use taxpayer money to hire lobbyists to go to Austin and fight legislation he believes will benefit those same taxpayers. "Taxpayer-funded lobbyists overwhelm the voices of citizens and elected officials, the very people we as legislators are elected to represent," he said. His bill, SB 29, wouldn't prevent local officials like mayors or city managers from coming to the statehouse to support or oppose legislation. The bill needs a final vote, likely Wednesday, to proceed to the House.

Finally on Tuesday, the Senate approved the last two of a four bill package from Conroe Senator Brandon Creighton that would prohibit municipalities from imposing regulations relating to benefits and other employment practices on private businesses. He believes that these regulations stifle economic growth in Texas. Last week, the Senate passed two of his bills that would prevent cities from mandating sick leave and paid time-off policies to local businesses. Another bill passed Tuesday would also prohibit municipal regulations on scheduling requirements and overtime policies. "If enacted, these local policies would be catastrophic to businesses large and small," said Creighton. "Construction companies, restaurants, retail, hospitality and many other industries would be devastated." The final bill in the package would prohibit "ban the box" ordinances: rules preventing private employers from inquiring about past criminal history on employment applications. These measures will also need another, final vote Wednesday.

Blumenthal, Durbin, & Duckworth Introduce Legislation to Strengthen Enforcement of Foreign Lobbying Transparency Law

Washington, D.C. - August 1, 2017 - (The Ponder News) -- U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) introduced legislation to strengthen registration requirements for foreign government lobbyists and to crack down on foreign agents who fail to comply with the law. The Foreign Agent Lobbying Transparency Enforcement Act would give the Department of Justice (DOJ) the ability to impose civil financial penalties on lobbyists who fail to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA). This transparency law requires individuals to promptly register with DOJ when they take on clients who are foreign governments or political parties and to periodically disclose information on their foreign lobbying activities. Currently, DOJ attempts to enforce FARA through voluntary compliance and this lax enforcement has resulted in a status quo where individuals representing foreign governments regularly violate this law. For example, FARA requires lobbyists register as foreign agents within 10 days of agreeing to represent a foreign principal but—because the law is difficult to effectively enforce—62% of foreign agents registered late and 47% did not provide the required disclosure materials between 2013 and 2015.

“Congress must takes steps now to protect against the kind of dangerous conflicts of interest that have run rampant in the Trump Administration,” said Blumenthal. “The American people deserve to know about deep-rooted, deep-pocketed dealings between American citizens and foreign governments – and they deserve to make their own judgements about foreign lobbyists like Paul Manafort or Michael Flynn before they have the chance to influence U.S. government policy. This bill will ensure potentially criminal connections between government officials and foreign agents are revealed long before they endanger our national security.”

“While the Foreign Agents Registration Act requires agents of foreign governments to disclose their relationships, a 2016 report found that violations of FARA were frequent and enforcement was lacking. With the high profile violations of Paul Manafort, President Trump’s campaign manager, and Michael Flynn, President Trump’s National Security Advisor, it is clear that reforms to FARA are needed now more than ever,” said Durbin. “I’m proud to introduce this legislation with Senators Duckworth and Blumenthal to improve compliance with FARA and increase transparency of foreign lobbying activities for the American people.”

“When lobbyists hide their relationships with foreign governments, it is not just a conflict of interest – it is dangerous to our national security,” said Duckworth. “The American people had no idea when Michael Flynn became President Trump’s National Security Advisor that he had been paid a significant amount of money to further the interests of the Turkish and Russian governments – and they did not know Paul Manafort had been paid tens of millions of dollars by a Kremlin-connected Ukrainian political party when he became Donald Trump’s campaign chairman. These former Trump staffers, like countless other lobbyists, failed to disclose their status as foreign agents and they should face the consequences instead of being allowed to continue to operate with impunity.”

In recent months, there have been a number of high profile examples of foreign government lobbyists failing to follow the law. Former Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff all retroactively registered as lobbyists for foreign governments after media reports exposed their activities.

The DOJ rarely pursues criminal prosecutions because the amount of resources that would be required to conduct a criminal investigation and secure a conviction is prohibitively high. As a result, DOJ has only pursued criminal charges against FARA violators 7 times. It has not sought a civil injunction for a FARA violation since 1991. As the DOJ Inspector General told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Congress needs to put “some teeth into the statue.” The Senators’ legislation would do just that by giving DOJ a greater ability to levy civil fines to punish those who file late or fail to register as foreign agents – as well as the discretion to adjust the penalty based on the severity and frequency of the infraction.

In addition to strengthening FARA enforcement, the Senators’ legislation would increase transparency by improving the quality of foreign lobbying disclosures filed with DOJ. Currently, foreign agents only have to disclose lobbying materials they sent to multiple recipients, allowing them to hide individual meetings and communications even if they are with an influential policymaker or a Member of Congress. The Foreign Agent Lobbying Transparency Enforcement Act would close this loophole. It would also make sure that foreign agents disclose the specific recipients of their foreign lobbying materials, and the original date of distribution of the materials. This information will empower DOJ to better enforce FARA’s timeliness requirements for disclosing foreign lobbying activities, while providing the American public with transparency into how foreign governments are attempting to influence U.S. policymakers. The legislation has been endorsed by the Project on Government Oversight.

“This legislation is an important step forward in strengthening this vital transparency law. It is our hope that the Justice Department will be able to improve FARA compliance and enforcement rates and that the public and Congress will gain a better understanding of how foreign powers attempt to influence US public opinion and policy,” said Project on Government Oversight Executive Director Danielle Brian.