Veteran's Day Leave Reminder

Veteran's Day (November 11) is just around the corner. You may recall that Oregon passed a new law in the last session requiring employers to grant Veteran's Day off to eligible veterans unless it creates an undue hardship on the employer.

This year, employees must request the day off by October 21. Employers must inform employees whether they can take the day off by October 28.

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Navigating the Exchange for Small Business Owners and Employees

Many small employers do not offer health insurance and are wondering what to do for themselves and their employees before January 1^st, 2014 rolls around.  Small businesses (fewer than 50 employees) are not subject to the employer mandate and thus do not receive a penalty for not offering health insurance.  However small businesses owners and employees are considered individuals and thus are subject to the individual mandate (see my article on this topic in the first link below).  If either of the aforementioned individuals do not obtain health insurance the following penalties apply.

What’s salary got to do with it?

Having a hard time finding or keeping great employees -

Offering an appropriate rate of pay is key to finding and keeping great employees.

Keep losing great employees to the competition; or worse, no one is applying for your job openings? Reviewing the rate of pay may be a good place to start. Make sure the rate offered is in an appropriate range to target the employee you are looking to land. If you want an employee with a master’s degree and years of on the job experience, $9.00 per hour will not cut it. This begs the question, how much should I pay?

Replace Oregon Workers’ Compensation with a single payer health insurance system?

I remember when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became law and one of the questions that came up was, ‘Would the ACA replace workers’ compensation?’ 

The logic behind the question was if everyone has health insurance, then they really do not need medical benefits from workers’ compensation.  Similar logic was raised in a version of a recent bill in Oregon’s last legislative session, HB 2922.  The bill states, “SECTION 26.  { + (1) The Affordable Health Care for All Oregon Plan shall be the primary payer of reimbursement for health services provided through the plan, including but not limited to compensable medical expenses covered by workers' compensation insurance.”  This bill did not pass but a study was funded by HB 3260 to see if a single payer system is advisable for Oregon. (see links to these bills below)