These days, Washington is brimming with ideas for healthcare overhaul. The latest one: a proposal by Sen. Ted Kennedy for universal coverage — and it partly throws funding back into the laps of employers.

The plan is called the American Health Choices Act. The highlights:

• All Americans would have access to “essential health care benefits,” with no annual or lifetime limits, under coverage provided through a public insurance agency.
• Employers — along with workers who are deemed financially able to contribute — would have to subsidize part of the cost of coverage.
• The government would subsidize premiums for people with incomes up to 500% of the poverty level ($110,000 for a family of four), and private insurers would have to pay out a specified percentage of their premium revenues in benefits.
• The program would pay doctors and hospitals at Medicare rates, plus 10%.
• Included in the program would be home- and community-based care for 10 million people with severe disabilities.
• Individuals would be subject to financial penalties if they did not have health insurance. The penalties would be levied as part of an individual’s income tax and would be collected by the Internal Revenue Service. Low-income individuals would be exempt from the penalties.
• The benefits of the program would be set by a panel of experts that would set minimum coverages that insurers would have to provide.
• “Dependent children” coverage would extend to age 26.
• Income limits to qualify for Medicaid would be lowered, essentially opening up such coverage to millions more.
• Funded by the federal government, states would establish “health benefit gateways” to disseminate information about premiums and benefits and assist in enrollment.
• The Department of Health and Human Services would establish the new government-sponsored plan, which would compete directly with private insurers.

The bill offers broader benefits and more government involvement than the plan being written by the Senate Finance Committee.  Senate Democratic leaders expect some merger and compromise involving the two bills, probably by the end of the summer.

It’s an election year. That means candidates are loading up new pieces of legislation, and two of the proposals directly affect how you’ll do your job.

Here’s a summary of them and what they mean to HR managers and their companies.

The Civil Right Act of 2008

Proposed by Democrats Clinton, Kennedy and Obama, this revision of the existing Civil Rights Act would:

• Stiffen penalties for violations of the Equal Pay Act and institute tougher standards on employers who have to prove that a pay differential is the result of a factor other than sex and is related to job performance – such as differences in education, training or experience. With the new standards, HR managers would have to double- and triple-check to make sure the law is being followed, or suffer the consequences.
• Add compensatory and punitive damages to the remedies available to employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act, in addition to back pay, which is doubled if an underpayment is intentional and not in “good faith,” and make it easier for employees who win a discrimination or pay case to recover some legal expenses from their employers, such as the cost of providing expert witnesses. That makes the stakes – and the risk – higher for employers who choose to fight it out in court, and increases the demand that supervisors thoroughly document their decisions.

Americans with Disabilities Act More than 240 co-sponsors in the U.S. House have signed on to the proposed ADA Restoration Act, which would:

• Redefine “disability” to include simply “a physical or mental impairment” or “a record of a physical or mental impairment” or the state of “being regarded as having a physical or mental impairment” — meaning individuals no longer would need to prove that impairments “substantially limit” one or more “major life activities.”
• Prohibit courts and employers from considering the effects of medication or devices when determining whether individuals are disabled. That is, if you have an employee whose disability is lessened by medication or a medical device, you wouldn’t be allowed to take that into account when deciding if the employee is disabled.
• Shift the burden of proving qualification to perform a job from employee, who now must show that he or she is qualified, to employers, who must show the employee is not qualified.

What you can do

Since the legislation is still under study, members of Congress are looking for real-life examples of how the changes would unfairly affect business or the way in which employees are treated.

If you have an example – for instance, a situation with a disabled employee – you should contact your representatives with a description of the situation.