House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) and Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Chairman Phil Roe (R-TN) today asked the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to provide information concerning the role of worker centers in implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The request is part of an ongoing effort examining t... Read more »
Dear Secretary Sebelius: We understand worker centers have received federal taxpayer grants under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to serve as navigators. Accordingly, we are investigating the funding and activities of worker centers. To further this investigation, we ask you to provide information, documents, and communications relating to PPACA grants awarded to worker cen... Read more »
President Obama has intoned "if you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan" hundreds if not thousands of times. Sometimes he has even added that "no one will take it away, no matter what" or "nothing will change, period." But now that reality is repudiating the President's unequivocal promise, Democrats want you to know that there was always a secret footnote: If you're losing a hea... Read more »
Dear Secretary Perez: On October 1, the U.S. Department of Labor published a final rule making significant changes to the long-standing minimum wage and overtime exemption for companionship services under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). When this regulation takes effect, on January 1, 2015, it will create a new definition for what constitutes companionship services—limiting the duties and tas... Read more »
House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) released the following statement urging the Senate to reject the nomination of Richard Griffin as general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board: The Senate should unanimously reject the nomination of Richard Griffin for general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board. For months Griffin performed the duties of a b... Read more »
Today the House of Representatives is considering the Retail Investor Protection Act (H.R. 2374), bipartisan legislation to help protect the retirement security of hardworking Americans. Federal law has long provided clear guidance to determine whether someone who provides retirement services is held to a fiduciary standard of care. However, since 2010 the Department of Labor has tried to signific... Read more »
The topic of this hearing personally affects many in our audience, men and women who have spent a lifetime in the workplace and hope to enjoy retirement with the financial security they were promised. Unfortunately, that security is now in jeopardy for a number of different reasons. For example, the recent recession and a sluggish economy continue to threaten the multiemployer pension system and t... Read more »
THEN: "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period." President Barack Obama NOW: “Millions of Americans are getting their health insurance cancelled under the Affordable Care Act and the Obama administration has known for about three years that this would happen.” USA Today “More than two million Americans have been told they cannot renew their current i... Read more »
On Tuesday, October 29 at 10:00 a.m., the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions, chaired by Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN), will hold a hearing entitled, “Strengthening the Multiemployer Pension System: How Will Proposed Reforms Affect Employers, Workers, and Retirees?" The latest in a series of hearings on multiemployer pension reform, the hearing will take place in room 2175 of the Raybu... Read more »
Dear Secretary Duncan: In preparation for the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce has been collecting feedback from the higher education community, students, and their families on ways to strengthen the nation’s postsecondary education system. The responses received have led to several hearings in the Subcommittee on Higher Educ... Read more »
