Daily Archives: June 16, 2014

Politics

Obama Poised to Sign LGBT Rights Executive Order

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For those engaged in the fight for LGBT protections in the workplace, the White House revealed some very big news today.  Here’s the story from the Washington Post…

President Obama will sign an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against gays, lesbians and others on the basis of their sexual orientation – an election-year move that follows years of pressure by gay rights organizations.

Obama’s decision to proceed with the executive order, announced Monday by the White House, immediately delighted gay rights groups, even as it signaled that Obama doesn’t believe broader action by Congress is likely. Obama is set to address a fundraiser hosted by the Democratic National Committee’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender council Tuesday in New York.

“The President has directed his staff to prepare for his signature an Executive Order that prohibits federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity,” a White House official said in a statement. “The action would build upon existing protections, which generally prohibit federal contractors and subcontractors from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. This is consistent with the President’s views that all Americans, LGBT or not, should be treated with dignity and respect.”

White House officials didn’t detail the timing of the executive order, which Obama originally promised to pursue in his 2008 campaign. For years since, he has declined to issue the order, citing other administration efforts to advance gay rights and a desire to avoid interfering with efforts in Congress to pass the broader Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would ban discrimination against gays in the workplace. The Senate has passed ENDA, but the House has declined.

This one action from the Obama Administration is estimated to extend protections to approximately 16 million Americans working as Federal employees, or for companies with Federal Contracts.  Equal Rights groups have been working for this Executive Order for a long time, and are simply thrilled at the prospect of the unprecedented move. The Human Rights Campaign had this to say…

“By issuing an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT people, the President will not only create fairer workplaces across the country, he will demonstrate to Congress that adopting federal employment protections for LGBT people is good policy and good for business. The White House statement today is promising, and we look forward to seeing the details of the executive order,” said HRC President Chad Griffin.

As Houston just learned from our own equal rights battle, the devil is definitely in the details.  But given how little is getting done in Congress this year, the President’s actions on this issue will be a welcome move for American workers, and set a new standard by which all companies will have to compete.  Of course when it comes to LGBT issues, President Obama has been quite good at setting new standards.  Under his administration, Congress was able to repeal the discriminatory Don’t Ask Don’t Tell practice of the US military, and with a little prodding from Vice President Biden, came out in support of marriage equality.  Hopefully this bold move on workplace protections will generate some motion from the House and Senate as well.

 

 

Politics

ACA Has Helped Create Nearly 1 Million Jobs

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Honestly this shouldn’t be too surprising, but the Affordable Care Act isn’t just giving people more access to quality healthcare.  It’s also putting Americans to work and saving many of our nation’s hospitals, as reported by Dan Diamond of Forbes magazine…

Obamacare was once called “The Job-Killing Health Care Law.” But the latest jobs report suggests that the broader economy—and the health care sector, specifically—is adding jobs at a healthy rate.

  • Since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law in March 2010, the health care industry has gained nearly 1 million jobs—982,300, to be more precise—according to Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates released on Friday.
  • Meanwhile, the rest of the economy has added 7.7 million jobs since March 2010, and for the first time, more people are working since the recession began five years ago.
  • Private-sector jobs also grew for the 51st straight month, Justin Wolfers observes at The Upshot, which ties the longest consecutive streak on record and overlaps with the passage of Obamacare 50 months ago. But that streak is piddling compared to health care, which just reported its 131st straight month of job gains.

Booming growth in the heath care industry shouldn’t come as a surprise. The health care sector was gaining about 25,000 jobs per month in the years before the Affordable Care Act, and the law’s infusion of newly insured patients will help bolster providers’ bottom lines.

Besides the obvious job creation needed to handle millions of additional patients and insurance plans, the ACA has also created jobs by upping compensation for hospitals, especially in states that took some form of Medicaid expansion.  Hospitals and doctors have previously had to shoulder the cost for any patient that was treated and then could not pay for their care.  But now thanks to the ACA, those hospitals are able to provide a better quality of service because more of their overall care is compensated.  As previously discussed in this blog, the Medicaid expansion has often proven a necessary life line for our nation’s rural hospitals, some of which were forced into debt for seeing so many patients that couldn’t pay.

The healthcare needs of the United States will only continue to grow as a larger and larger share of the population ages.  But thankfully because of actions taken back in 2010, we’ll be much better prepared for them with more people working, and more avenues to quality care.