labor lawAdivision of labor law center

After all this talk about health care prices going up and government plans to take away health care responsibilities from employers, it is a different theme to hear then about a state government that is going to give money to employers for health care expenses.

That is right. The state of Oklahoma recently passed a law that would make health care more affordable for everyone perhaps, according to my sources. The bill was just signed into law by the governor of Oklahoma, Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat. There are actually two laws that the governor signed, both of which have to do with the costs of health care and ways to decrease it.

The first new law in Oklahoma is called SB 424, and it makes it so that it is easier for poorer residents of the state to get health care benefits from the state. Instead of having to be below the 185 percent of poverty line level in the state, no citizens can be less than 300 percent of the poverty line in terms of salary and get the state health care assistance when it comes to buying health care for their children.

The law is called the All Kids Act, and it provides a cheaper health care plan for parents through a private insurance plan. The overall costs of the plan will be about $4200 per year for a child. The parents, however, will only pay about one quarter of that, while the state and the federal government will pick up the rest of the tab. The new law is expected to give this new benefit to an additional 45,000 children about in the state. It will cost overall about $8.2 million over the course of the next three years, and will be paid through another form of tobacco tax on cigarettes and such.

It is the next law that all of us employers might be more interested in. This second law that Gov. Brad Henry signed directly affects how many employers in the state will do health care benefits going forward. What the new law will do is provide some form of subsidies for employers that give health care benefits to their employees. As with the previous health care related reform law, this employer helping bill will also get paid for by a tobacco tax in the state.

Some of the money will also come through a settlement that the state of Oklahoma got as part of the big tobacco settlements of the 1990s. in 1998 to be exact, the state of Oklahoma got about half of a million dollars from Big Tobacco for all of the cancer patients that could have come about in the state because of cigarettes and other tobacco products.

Not much more details on the new health care plan in Oklahoma were released by my source, as to whether or not all employers in the state will get this new health care insurance benefit subsidy, or whether only smaller employers in the state will get it and larger employers will need to keep paying for health care benefits on their own. And it is not entirely clear how much of a subsidy this new law will provide to whatever employers it is covering. But one thing is sure—it is a new form of health care reform that we have not really seen in other states, so in that regard, the state of Oklahoma is relatively innovative and should have a close eye on it, even if you are not an Oklahoma employer. The Sooner State could be providing an interesting example for the rest of us to follow.

The Family and Medical Leave Act is designed to offer job protection when we must leave our workplace to attend to pressing family needs. Some states have chosen to create their own versions of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which are sometimes slightly different. Oklahoma abides by the federal program. Under the law, employees can take as many as 12 weeks of unpaid leave annually for these kinds of circumstances. Private workplaces with 50 or more employees must abide by the law. Public workers and teachers are protected even if the workplace has fewer than 50 employees. Whether you’re a father or a mother, there’s a good chance you’re also a wage or salary earner.

The Oklahoma FMLA law is the program offering you the support you need for critical times. Those times could be good – the birth of a child, an adoption, receiving a foster child into the home. They could be difficult – a loved one being in an accident or having a serious illness in your immediate family.

Between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, then, may be a good time to take a look at the program designed to help you during those times when you must take the emphasis off work and put it directly on your family.

If you’re on unpaid leave and have medical coverage deducted from your paychecks, your employer can continue your deductions to make sure your coverage remains active. However, that will cost you later. Those deductions while you’re on leave and not receiving your wage or salary must be paid for somehow. The employer will consider those deductions as advances against future paychecks. The money will then come out of future earnings. Your and your employer should sign a written agreement making this arrangement clear.

The Oklahoma FMLA provides a poster describing the basics of the program, including eligibility and benefits. It should be displayed prominently at work.

If you’re an employer with a health plan that includes mental health treatment, did you know that the caps on benefit amounts for that care cannot be lower than the limits on other medical care? A recent ruling has extended the Mental Health Parity Act (MHPA) until December 31, 2007.

The act will have a strong effect on Oklahoma employee benefit plans, and nationwide applies to 150 million employees. The ruling extending the law comes down from the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA).

The federal agency covers most businesses in the U.S. Its job is to guarantee that group insurance plans abide by laws controlling pensions and health plans. The MHPA became law in 1996, and since that time has been subject to five amendments extending it past its September 31, 2001 “sunset clause,” or expiration date.

Group health plans are not allowed to put lower limits on mental health coverage than they do for medical procedures, including surgery. Before passage of the original law, your company’s coverage plan could legally have a $250,000 limit on medical care benefits but a $15,000 limit on mental health treatments. Now the two must be equal – plans with the $250,000 medical limit must have the same $250,000 benefit limit on health care. Annual caps on benefits are covered also, with mental health coverage equal to the lifetime or annual ceiling on medical or surgical procedures.

What’s included under the category of mental health treatments? Stays in rehabilitation facilities, or “rehabs” for treatment of alcohol or drug dependency are covered, as are visits to mental health professionals – licensed therapists, psychiatrists, and psychologists. Also included are stays in the mental health section of a medical hospital, or in mental hospitals themselves, for illnesses like schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression.

There is nothing in the law requiring you as an employer to have a mental health component in your group health insurance program. It requires instead that, if you already have mental health coverage, its benefit limits must be equal to those of your plan’s medical or surgical treatment coverage.

We have seen some states where there are different cut offs for different types of businesses when it comes to unemployment insurance. For instance, we have seen states where for-profit companies have to be paying a certain amount in payroll in order to be liable for unemployment insurance tax, whereas nonprofit companies would have to be paying a different amount of payroll, or have a different number of workers on staff, in order to qualify and be liable.

Well, in Oklahoma, the qualifying factors may be simpler to follow, at least when it comes to for-profit and nonprofit companies. That is because the qualifying factors are the same for both. In both cases, if you employ one or more workers in 20 weeks over the course of the year, or if you have a payroll of more than $1500 in a quarter, then you are liable for unemployment insurance taxes.

There are certain nonprofits, however, that do have their own rules when it comes to unemployment insurance taxes. Those companies are ones designated as nonprofits by the code of the Internal Revenue Service. If you are one of these nonprofits, then you are only liable for unemployment insurance if you have four or more workers employed in 20 weeks over the course of the year.

In Oklahoma, all state companies and organizations, local government entities, school districts, and public trusts must also pay unemployment insurance for each and every one of their employees. Agricultural employers have their own set of rules under the Oklahoma unemployment insurance system. They are liable for unemployment insurance tax if they have a total payroll of more than $20,000 in a quarter, or if they have more than 10 employees working for them in 20 weeks out of the calendar year. Then they are liable to pay the tax too.

The Oklahoma Employment Security Act provides that under certain conditions payments of money may be made to unemployed individuals from an unemployment compensation fund contributed to by employers subject to the Act. Oklahoma employers and nonprofit organizations (other than those described in Section 501 (c) (3) of the IRS Code) pay the tax if they employ one or more workers in each of twenty different calendar weeks during a calendar year or if they have a payroll of $1,500.00 in a calendar quarter or are liable under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act.

Nonprofit organizations as described in Section 501 (c) (3) of the IRS Code will be liable if they employ four or more workers in each of twenty different calendar weeks during a calendar year. All state agencies, cities, towns, counties, public trusts or local school districts, including nonprofit elementary and secondary schools, also pay unemployment taxes.

Agricultural employers who have a total payroll of $20,000.00 in any calendar quarter during a calendar year or have ten or more employees in twenty different calendar weeks during a calendar year are required to pay this tax. The same holds true for domestic employers such as private homes, local college clubs or local chapters of college fraternities or sororities who pay $1,000.00 cash remuneration in any calendar quarter during a calendar year must also pay the tax.

If you are an employer in any of these situations, you are required by law to post Oklahoma Unemployment Insurance posters for your employees to see.

As described in Oklahoma Unemployment Insurance posters, a claimant can qualify if, during his base period, he received wages from employers subject to the Oklahoma Employment Security Act amounting to: (1) not less than $1,500.00 and (2) one and one-half times the amount of wages during that quarter of the base period in which such wages were highest. However, any claimant with $13,500 or more of taxable base period wages is eligible even of these wages were all in one quarter. A claimant’s earnings after the beginning of a previous benefit year in which benefits were paid must equal ten times the weekly benefit amount in the new benefit year.

Claimants must register for work at a State Employment office and file a claim in order to establish unemployment benefit rights. A notice is mailed to the last covered employer for whom the claimant worked at least 15 working days. The claimant must continue to file claims as directed by the Employment Service. On each continued claim filed, the claimant must certify as to his/her eligibility to receive unemployment compensation. These requirements are listed on Oklahoma Unemployment Insurance posters.