The Senate Judiciary Committee completed work on S. 744 last night, which sets up consideration by the full Senate in June. The vote was 13-5 and demonstrated bi-partisan support for the framework. Prior to passage, the committee adopted an amendment negotiated by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY), which would address critical aspects of the H-1B visa provisions of the bill.

The NAM joined the U.S. Chamber in sending a letter of support for Senator Hatch’s amendment to all members of the Judiciary Committee. In June, the Senate will take up a comprehensive immigration package that contains the following: increased access to high-skilled talent; increased legal access to lower-skilled workers; a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented; and an enhanced verification program with protections for employers acting in good faith. The NAM is anticipating vigorous debate on this legislation over the summer in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

It seems like each new week brings another setback for the National Labor Relations Board. This morning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a ruling invalidating President Obama’s recess appointments to the Board. The Third Circuit ruling was essentially the same as the conclusion reached by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit – the President’s recess appointment power was intended for times between sessions of Congress not simply short breaks taken during a session for lawmakers to return home to their states.

This week’s ruling follows on the heels of another defeat for the Board last week that invalidated its notice posting rule after nearly two years of legal wrangling. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit invalidated the notice posting rule as a result of a suit filed by the NAM in September of 2011.

Joe Trauger is vice president of human resources policy, National Association of Manufacturers.

This week, the House of Representatives will once again vote on a bill that has little prospect of passage in the Senate and has zero chance of being signed by the President if it were to succeed. By some counts, this is the 37^th time Congress will hold a vote to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). So if everyone agrees that it is likely to fail to become law, why should anyone care?

The NAM did not support the ACA when it was passed by Congress and signed by the President three years ago. Generally, implementation of the law over the past three years has been disappointing. As we reach the mid-point of 2013, the implementation process has become downright alarming, which is no doubt a factor behind the vote the House of Representatives will take on Thursday to repeal the ACA.

In less than five months, beginning on October 1, 2013, Americans are supposed to have access to health insurance through state exchanges that meet the criteria set out by the ACA. Some states are setting up their own exchanges and some are just letting the federal government do it, but that’s not really the issue that’s sounding alarms and feeding anxieties among consumers and businesses alike.

With less than five months before this program goes live, there is a lot we don’t know:

-          What products are available?
-          What are the prices for those products?
-          How do consumers get coverage?
-          How much will the federal subsidies cover?
-          How do we compare plans offered?
-          Who do I call with questions?
-          What is the impact on employer-sponsored coverage?

We don’t seem to be getting very many answers from the department in charge of putting this thing together- unless you consider planning a major public relations campaign an acceptable strategy for implementation. Most people don’t have confidence a public relations campaign will do the trick.

Ultimately, that’s the meaning of the vote being taken by the House of Representatives on Thursday – it is a vote of no-confidence. It is a firm and unambiguous statement of position on a major revision of federal law that will be confronting us not only in the months ahead, but also for many years to come. That is why the NAM supports a piece of legislation that has failed 37 times – and why everyone else should be paying close attention too.

Joe Trauger is vice president of human resources policy, National Association of Manufacturers.

The NAM is pleased that Senator Hatch’s amendment just passed by voice vote.  The amendment creates a green card fee whose funds will go to the states to focus on STEM education. This concept is also included in the Hatch Klobuchar I-Squared bill also supported by manufacturers. Investing in domestic STEM education is necessary for the success of US manufacturers. We need to improve the domestic pipeline of talent in the STEM fields to secure the next generation of scientists and researchers. We appreciate Senator Hatch and the committees’ strong support for this effort.

Is it possible for an entire federal agency to be in denial? The National Labor Relations Board has been rebuked, rebuffed and reminded by the Courts that its powers are not limitless. Yet, the Board remains curiously silent about the ruling last week that served as a body-blow to an agency that just two years ago was sticking out its chest and poking its proverbial bully-finger at businesses.

The NLRB website still has a page dedicated to an out-of-date poster with no mention of the fact that it has been rejected by the Courts. It’s like returning to your parents’ home and finding they still haven’t torn down the New Kids on the Block poster in your sister’s room. It’s kind of cute, but also a little discomforting. It might be time for the Board to acknowledge its poster idea was ill-conceived and take it down once and for all.

President Obama released his proposed budget this morning and within it we see some of the same worn out health care ideas that have been rejected in the past. One in particular would require rebates from pharmaceutical companies for the products sold to Medicare beneficiaries who are also eligible for Medicaid. The President’s budget claims $140 billion in savings would be generated by implementing such an idea, but it puts Part D on the path of other government programs that haven’t served beneficiaries or taxpayers nearly as well.

Before Medicare Part D was enacted, these “dual-eligibles” would have received their drug coverage under Medicaid – a program run by states for low-income individuals. Drug coverage varied from state-to-state and seniors were treated as poor first and seniors second. Part D flipped that around and treats them as seniors first and poor second – while it may not seem like it, that’s an important distinction. It means seniors who happen to be lower-income can participate in the same program their wealthier cohorts participate in and receive the same level of benefits whether they live on the East Coast or in the Mid-West.

Applying a rebate scheme based on reverting back to treating seniors as low-income first is bad policy and something the NAM has opposed in the past and will continue to oppose in the future. Medicare Part D is working well for seniors and taxpayers – we should be looking to export some of the lessons we’ve learned about how the private market can help reduce costs rather than import the command and control mechanisms of an overactive government.

Today, President Obama announced his nomination of Mark Pearce for Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board and two other individuals to join current recess appointee/nominees Richard Griffin and Sharon Block. What this means is every slot on the NLRB currently has someone nominated, but only one has actually been confirmed by the Senate – Chairman Pearce, whose term expires in a few months. The new nominees, both Republicans, are Harry I. Johnson III and Phillip A. Miscimarra.

Mr. Johnson is a partner with Arent Fox in Los Angeles, CA and is a graduate of Harvard Law. Mr. Miscimarra is a partner at the law firm of Morgan Lewis in Chicago and holds a J.D. and M.B.A. from the University of
Pennsylvania.

April 1 is the start date for the Citizenship and Immigration Services to accept H1B petitions for the new fiscal year. Today is also April Fool’s Day and if a company needs a high-tech worker, but doesn’t apply within the next couple of days, the chances of them getting a visa are the joke.

Petitions are expected to exceed the annual the cap of 65,000 either today or in the next few days. That means that anyone looking to hire a highly-skilled foreign-born candidate who has not applied on April 1 will likely not be able to hire that talented individual this year – and this is not a new phenomenon.

Each year, even during the darkest days of the economic turndown, the cap was reached before the end of the year. As a result, the U.S. is losing highly-educated and highly-skilled talent to other countries. Thousands of students come to the U.S. from around the world to enroll in our colleges and universities, but when they’re done with their programs we send them back home to compete against us due to a lack of visas.  This system needs to be fixed and we are on the verge of making that happen.

In February, Senators Hatch, Klobuchar, Rubio and Coons introduced the Innovation Immigration Act or I-Squared Act. The bill focuses on this problem as well as the long-time back-log of green cards. The NAM sent a letter in support of this legislation and is now submitting a letter along with nearly 60 companies and organizations that see the need for reform and see the I-squared bill as the best way forward.

Today is the annual milestone that often marks the broken system and we are putting forward our support for legislation that will change it. We need to stop playing the fool and start focusing on policies that will strengthen our economy – enacting I-Squared through a common-sense immigration reform package will do just that.

Joe Trauger is vice president of human resources policy, National Association of Manufacturers.

Among the many Yogi-isms, “This is like déjà vu all over again,” probably applies best to the results of a recent survey released by the NAM and IndustryWeek. The results showed health care costs are, again, the top challenge identified by manufacturers. A close second was “uncertainties related to the political climate”. The Affordable Care Act seems to be the common thread.

Vermeer Health Center

Manufacturers such as Vermeer Corporation offer employees and their families high-quality health plans and benefits, including an onsite health center, pharmacy and wellness incentives that truly contribute to improved health and lower costs.  However, such actions will not be adopted by even well-intended manufacturers in the current environment of high costs involved with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and its uncertainties.

Manufacturers have a high level of anxiety about implementation of the ACA – and rightly so. Health care costs continue to rise at rates well above inflation levels with no sign of abating.  The main pillars of the law take effect in less than 10 months, but much of it needs to be up and running in October – less than seven months from today. Yet, we are only now getting a glimpse of the regulations detailing how things will work.

Manufacturers and businesses generally need predictability to thrive. A complete change in the health care delivery system with a host of known unknowns and unknown unknowns is not a good way to provide that predictability. This leads us to the third most identified concern – the unfavorable business climate due to taxes and regulation. The ACA includes a myriad of new taxes and regulations on all employers, which will continue to be a burden for years to come. A consistent burden of taxes and regulations is not the kind of stability that will create US jobs and help the manufacturing sector.

The great catcher Yogi Berra also said “You can observe a lot by watching.” We’ll be doing quite a bit of that in the coming months too.

The old saying is April showers bring May flowers, but the rain has already started here in Washington when it comes to healthcare regulations being pushed out in 2013. On Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced it will release 700 pages of regulations in the next two weeks to implement the Affordable Care Act. I sure hope the healthcare is more affordable than what it costs to print the regulations stemming from the new law, but I guess when a law is nearly 3,000 pages and says “The Secretary shall…” over 1,000 times we should expect that.

The latest reg-dump on Friday covers some important ground on premium-stabilization provisions of the law and they will provide a little more clarity on how much healthcare costs will increase ($65 per policy), but it’s still only part of the overall picture. There are less than seven months before the Affordable Care Act needs to stand on its own and start running. By most estimates, there are at least 10-12 significant rules that have to be worked out before October. This raises an interesting question, what needs to be done? I refer to it as the Regulatory Triple-Lindy, and it has a high degree of difficulty.

In the next 211 days, entirely new data collections and processing systems need to be up and online in order to determine who is eligible for what program and when. Insurers need to know whether their products will pass new federal rules, what their prices are going to be, make contracts with providers and decide which markets to enter sometime before October in order to give employers time to do what they need to do. Small employers need to know what their coverage options cost, what kind of choices they have available to them and how the SHOP exchanges will work before October 1. The public needs to be educated about their options, understand those new products, compare plan options, and choose a plan before January 1 or pay a fine.  All of these things need to fit together seamlessly in order for this to work.

The NAM Human Resources Policy staff will be going through the 700 pages as fast as we can. The forecast for the next 211 days, however, is cloudy, with patchy fog and a 100 percent chance of precipitation – icy conditions are possible in shaded areas.