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MA Lawmakers to Weigh Four-Day Work Week The Massachusetts House Labor and Workforce Development Committee scheduled a hearing last week on legislation ( HB 3849 ) that would provide tax credits to businesses...
Bills to Overhaul Long-Term Care and Control Prescription Drug Costs on Move in MA The Massachusetts House unanimously passed a bill ( HB 4178 ) that would overhaul the long-term care industry, while...
OpenAI Ousts CEO Sam Altman The board of directors of OpenAI, developer of ChatGPT, announced on the company’s blog last week that its CEO Sam Altman would be stepping down. The blog post said...
For more than half a year, labor strife has swept the country. First, Hollywood writers went on strike in May. Then actors joined them in walking off the set a couple months later, in July. Detroit...
IL Lawmakers Approve Bill Lifting Moratorium on Nuclear Power Plants: The Illinois General Assembly passed legislation ( HB 2437 ) that, as amended, will lift a nearly four-decades-old moratorium on new...
On the last day of this year’s regular session, California lawmakers passed a bill (SB 525) that would phase in a nation-leading $25 minimum wage for workers at hospitals, nursing homes, and other medical facilities. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has until Oct. 14 to act on the measure. (KFF HEALTH NEWS, STATE NET)
At a virtual townhall last week Maryland Del. Joseline Pena-Melnyk (D), chair of her chamber’s Health and Government Operations Committee; U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD); and the advocacy groups Healthcare for All! and AARP announced their support for legislation next year to establish upper payment limits on some prescription drugs covered by private insurance plans. The planned measure would expand the authority of the state’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board, which is now working on establishing payment limits for drugs covered by public insurance plans. (WYPR)
Benefit consultants from Mercer, Aon and Willis Towers Watson are forecasting U.S. employer healthcare costs to jump 8.5% next year—the largest increase in a decade—due to medical inflation, high demand for expensive weight-loss drugs and expanded access to costly gene therapies. But with the tight labor market, most employers aren’t planning to shift that cost increase onto workers. Beth Umland, Mercer’s director of health & benefits research, said employers “don’t want to add more financial stress on employees who are also coping with inflation, especially in this time where they’re really relying on their health benefits as a way to keep employees working for them.” (REUTERS)
—Compiled by SNCJ Managing Editor KOREY CLARK
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