Here are links to Tuesday’s relevant House of Representatives Committee hearings — one“ Examining Health Sector Cybersecurity in the Wake of the Change Healthcare Attack” and the other “ERISA’s 50th Anniversary: the Path to Higher Quality, Lower Cost Health Care.”
STAT News reports,
- “President Joe Biden’s administration will help 50 countries identify and respond to infectious diseases, with the goal of preventing pandemics like the Covid-19 outbreak that suddenly halted normal life around the globe in 2020.
- “U.S. government officials will offer support in the countries, most of them located in Africa and Asia, to develop better testing, surveillance, communication, and preparedness for such outbreaks in those countries.
- “The strategy will help “prevent, detect and effectively respond to biological threats wherever they emerge,” Biden said in a statement Tuesday.
- “The Global Health Security Strategy, the president said, aims to protect people worldwide and “will make the United States stronger, safer, and healthier than ever before at this critical moment.”
The Congressional Budget Office issued a report about past performance and future directions of Medicare Accountable Care Organizations.
One Digital tells us,
- “The 2023 EEO-1 Component 1 data collection window opens on April 30, 2024 and ends June 4, 2024. Private-sector employers with 100 or more employees or federal contractors with 50 or more employees must submit workforce demographic data. The EEO-1 Component 1 report is a mandatory annual data collection. Covered employers must submit data by job category and sex and race or ethnicity to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Updates to the data collection will be posted to the EEOC’s dedicated EEO-1 Component 1 website.
- “The 2023 EEO-1 Component 1 Instruction Booklet and 2023 EEO-1 Component 1 Data File Upload Specifications are available on the EEOC’s dedicated EEO-1 Component 1 website. Employers must file their information through the EEO-1 Component 1 Online Filing System (OFS) either through manual data entry or data file upload. The EEO-1 Component 1 online Filer Support Message Center (i.e., filer help desk) will also be available on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, to assist filers with any questions they may have regarding the 2023 collection.”
HR Dive reports,
- “The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced on Monday its final rule implementing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, clarifying that abortion is included under “pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions” that are protected under the PWFA.
- “EEOC said this interpretation of the law’s text is “consistent with the Commission’s and courts’ longstanding interpretation of the same phrase in Title VII.” It also noted that employees are entitled to the law’s provisions even if they have not worked for an employer for a specific length of time.
- “EEOC had originally slated the rule for publication at the end of 2023, but the commission’s deadline passed without a rule in place. The rule is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register Friday, and will take effect 60 days after publication, approximately mid-June.”
The Government Accountability Office released a report on selected States regulation of pharmacy benefit managers.