After it passed the
California Assembly, the Health Care Security and Cost Reduction Act died in
the Senate. The Senate Health Committee cited the state’s huge budget deficit
and the lack of available funding for the bill’s provisions as reasons it voted
down the legislation. The measure, which sought to ensure affordable and
accessible healthcare coverage for
residents, would have required employers to be responsible for a substantial amount
of the funding. Employers with payrolls up to $250,000 would have had to
contribute a minimum of 1 percent toward health insurance costs, and those with
payrolls in excess of $15 million would have had to contribute 6.5 percent.
Employers would also have had to allow workers to pay premiums on a pretax
basis.
Gov. Schwarzenegger has
already announced that he intends to regroup and push through a healthcare
reform measure. We’ll keep you updated.
Join us this fall in San Francisco for the California Employment Law Update conference, a 3-day event that will teach you everything you need to know about new laws and regulations, and your compliance obligations, for the year ahead—it’s one-stop shopping at its best.