Paid Maternity Leave
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| Mon, 08-25-2008 - 5:26pm |
This week, I mailed off 7 copies of a maternity reform bill I designed. I sent the copies to my state legislature, governor and US legislatures, as well as one of the presidential candidates. The best part of my bill is that it provides for extended paid and unpaid time off for both mothers and fathers without costing extra to the government or companies. If anyone really wanted to take the time to look at it, I believe it would really make everyone happy and be very workable.
Since I know it takes awhile for anything to get done in the government, I though I would send a copy of the bill to you. If you like it and think it could work, please feel free to pass it on and encourage others to send it to their legislators. The most important thing is to get it instituted as quickly as possible. I am just one person. There is only so much I can do alone. But with others, perhaps we could get somewhere. Below is the content of my bill (worded for US legislators). Only a couple of minor rewordings are needed for state representatives. Thank you for your time.
Pregnancy/Maternity Reform Bill (Roland's Bill)
An Act Relating To Pregnancy/Maternity Reform in the Workplace. Premature births are on the rise in the United States. Approximately 1 out of every 8 babies born each year are premature. This increases medical expenses and leads to several long term health complications, including developmental problems that may not be noticed until years later. There are many contributing factors, but insufficient work leave/compensation exasperates an already complicated situation. Mothers must choose between getting the rest they need to carry their child healthfully to term and providing for their families financially. Anxiety over this lack of a choice creates a great many health problems that would not otherwise exist.
Current FMLA guidelines allow mothers and fathers to take up to 12 weeks of job protected leave for the birth of a child or an adoption. This is limited to people who have worked with their company for at least one year, have met the hours requirement of at least 1,250 hours worked the previous year and whose company employees over 50 employees within a 75 mile radius. That is approximately 60 percent of U.S. workers. This is unpaid leave, helpful for job security, but not helpful for people who cannot afford to take a pay cut for several months. Companies are not required to offer more than this. Though many do offer paid maternity/paternity leave, most do not pay for more than 6 weeks, and many companies require employees to use any vacation or sick time accrued, to be included in that 6 week period. Six weeks is the typical recovery period needed for a woman after childbirth. This short amount of time does not take into consideration time needed for bonding with the child, doctor appointments and immunizations, many of which occur after 6 weeks, time for breastfeeding mothers to adequately transition to pumping and bottle feeding, extended hospital stays for the baby and any bed rest needed before the child is born. Women going on bed rest before their due date must start their 12 weeks of FMLA and any company paid leave at that time. Early bed rest could add up to where the leave is exhausted before birth even occurs, leaving the mother forced to return to work almost immediately after the child is born, before she has recovered and had an opportunity to bond with her child. Fathers whose company does not offer paid paternity leave are often unable to afford to take off the time allowed under FMLA. They are forced to miss out on the initial bonding period afforded to the mother. Once the mother returns to work, if other company leave was included in her maternity leave, she will not get paid for time off to take the child to doctor appointments or for any illness she or her child may suffer for the rest of the year.
Also to consider is the difficulty and inconvenience of continuing to breastfeed once a woman has returned to work. Although some women continue to pump and breastfeed their children, not all women can afford to buy a good pump to use, and limitations of appropriate pumping areas at work may force mothers to stop breastfeeding sooner than they intended. Some women are forced to pump in bathrooms and many experience pressure from employers who do not want their employees unavailable several times a day while they are pumping. Many women experience criticism and lack of support from employers and coworkers who feel uncomfortable with pumping taking place around them. The health benefits of breast milk are well documented. If women were able to stay home for longer after the birth of their child, women who choose to breastfeed all of that time would be more able to do so. Even if they decided to discontinue breastfeeding upon return to work, that extra time would make a big difference in the overall health of the child, illnesses experienced by the child and subsequent doctor appointments the parents would need to miss work for later.
Some companies offer generous leave pay options, but that is not the norm, and it is not guaranteed. If the mother decides not to return to work, she does not receive any of the leave she earned and healthcare benefits cease at the time she needs them most, leading many women with no desire or intention of returning to work to wait until the last minute to inform their employer or returning for a brief time only to leave shortly after, leaving employers with little time to adjust to their loss. Although the guidelines under FMLA have helped many families, they are not enough. The current rules do not alleviate enough of the pressures felt by working mothers. Further action is needed to address the increase in prematurity and other health concerns faced by working parents and their children.
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My insurance covers up to 3 infertility tries and will pay 15k for each.
I knew people who lived in MA who paid regular premiums for treatments and no additional costs and then when I moved to TN for a short time I met a teacher who had saved and spent tens of
Okay, I see what you are saying, but at the same time not every insurance company has this option.
Not a debate (but maybe help Lisa):
I will have to find the list, but there is supplemental insurance policies that are just for adoption and infertity support.
It would be so refreshing to see you respond to me minus the rudeness. But until then I'll have to ignore the rudeness and respond to what substance I find instead. I'll do my best!
Regarding your implication that mandates don't affect health insurance rates you might find the article below useful. In fact it was released just today:
>>We Need a National Market for Health Insurance
By GRACE-MARIE TURNER
August 27, 2008; Page A13
Much to our surprise, the Census Bureau reported yesterday that the number of people in the U.S. with health insurance actually increased by 3.6 million last year. That's the good news. The bad news is that nearly three million of them got their coverage through government programs.
The slide toward a government-dominated, taxpayer-supported health sector will continue unless the 45.7 million Americans who don't have insurance now are given more opportunities to buy private coverage.
States could help by lightening their regulatory burdens to encourage greater competition for more attractive and affordable coverage. The federal government needs to do its part by updating today's tax policies to better fit a mobile, 21st-century economy.
A new study by University of Minnesota researchers Stephen Parente and Roger Feldman shows that Congress could boost by more than 12 million the number of people who have health insurance without spending taxpayer dollars. The change required is to allow people to buy health insurance across state lines, so they can shop for less expensive policies.
The cost of health insurance varies widely, but it is closely tied to state regulations and legislative mandates dictating what services and providers must be covered. More regulation and less competition generally mean less affordable coverage, and vice versa. For example, a typical health-insurance policy in heavily regulated New York costs more than three times as much as in less regulated Iowa ($388 a month versus $98 a month for the same coverage).
Every state requires health-insurance policies to cover certain services, ranging from maternity care to bone marrow transplants and hair prostheses. Nationwide there are more than 1,900 coverage mandates in all. The Council for Affordable Health Insurance estimates that these mandates add 20% to 50% to the cost of health-insurance policies.
Each mandate can be defended in its own right. But as the burden increases, fewer people can afford to buy insurance. Usually, individuals and small businesses are the first to be priced out of the market.
Yet laws designed to make health insurance more affordable often backfire. Many states tell insurance companies they must charge similar rates to everyone; they also force insurers to sell policies to people who wait until they are sick to buy coverage. It's a little like allowing a person to wait until his house is on fire, and then requiring an insurance company to sell him a homeowner's policy at the same rate as those who paid the premiums all along.
States should be giving residents more options to buy policies that suit their budgets, not the priorities of politicians. Rep. John Shadegg, a Republican from Arizona, has proposed federal legislation that would allow people to buy health insurance across state lines.
But Congress could do more than simply knocking down the barriers to interstate health insurance. For starters, it could make health insurance more portable. One way to do that would be to change the tax subsidies already going to those who get health insurance at work and turn them into refundable tax credits. This would make the subsidies available to everyone, and help millions of people buy coverage who can't afford it now. It would also help people keep their health insurance when they lose their jobs or move.
Freeing Americans to buy health insurance across state lines would give people more choices in health care. And giving individuals a direct tax break for purchasing coverage would put armies of consumers to work to find affordable policies. That would force states to lighten their regulations or lose out to other, less regulated states.
The complex problems in our health sector are best cured by a bigger dose of market competition, not more government intervention.<<
And I think you're confused as to what constitutes being a "hypocrite" and I do understand that was just another attempt by you to insult me. The term doesn't even come close in the example given. Remember I said I didn't believe someone should be forced to pay for a bunch of mandates for which they did not want coverage....as the article states too--it's the reason coverage is so unaffordable in so many places.
If you're paying the cost of the coverage you have then you've a member of that plan and covered under the terms of the plan. If I knew I were interested in having children then I would likely opt to pay extra for that type coverage. Maybe that's what I did do. If you're familiar with the private insurance market there is a thing called a "rider" which you can add for maternity coverage in the event you want that coverage. It's forced on people in group plans and in many state plans but it is optional in some states and in those states such a policy is less expensive.
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