The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently issued new guidelines explaining how federal employment discrimination laws apply to employee benefits. Last month we examined the rules regarding age discrimination. This month we look at the EEOC guidelines dealing with disability and pregnancy discrimination.
Disability Discrimination
Clearly you’re in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act if you provide equal benefits—in terms of premiums, deductibles, caps on coverage and waiting periods—to employees with and without disabilities. But, according to the EEOC, you can only provide unequal benefits based on disability if you can demonstrate the following:
- The benefit plan terms have been accurately communicated to eligible employees; and
- The plan isn’t designed to get around the ADA. This means, for example, that the difference in benefits is necessary to avoid prohibitive increases in the premiums for nondisabled employees. The EEOC says this might occur if the cost goes up so much that the plan would be unaffordable for significant numbers of employees.
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But illegal disability-based discrimination would exist if a health plan covered, for example, all physical and mental disorders except for major depression, or provided a lower lifetime cap for a particular condition, such as HIV/AIDS, than for other health problems.
Not all health-related criteria are off-limits. For example, a benefit plan provision that affects both individuals with and without disabilities, such as a waiting period for preexisting conditions, isn’t disability-based and so is lawful.
Finally, the EEOC guidelines confirm that retirement plans based on length of service may provide different benefits than those based on disability. But in order to satisfy the ADA, all employees must be permitted to participate in the service retirement plan on the same terms, regardless of disability.
Pregnancy Discrimination
Under the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act, employers must treat women affected by pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions the same as other employees who are similarly able or unable to work. If you offer benefits of any sort—including health or disability insurance—they must cover pregnancy and related medical conditions to the same extent that other medical conditions are covered. The benefit plan must provide:
- the same deductibles;
- the same level of co-insurance;
- the same choices of physicians and hospitals;
- the same basis for reimbursement; and
- the same sharing of premiums between employer and employees.