Federal Daily - March 10, 2008
Congress Considers Paid Parental Leave for Feds
A bill before Congress would mandate eight weeks of paid parental leave for all federal employees
upon the birth or adoption of a child. Sponsored by Rep Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., HR 3799, the Federal
Employees Paid Paternal Leave Act, would significantly expand leave opportunities for the nation’s
2.6 million federal workers. Federal workers don’t now have access to paid leave, Maloney said
at a March 6 subcommittee hearing on the bill. Federal employees who become new parents do have the
option—which proves to be largely inadequate—of using their accrued sick days and vacation
time or tapping into a “leave bank,” Maloney said. Otherwise, federal employees have access
to 12 weeks of unpaid leave through the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). “The American workplace
has not kept pace with the changing needs of workers and families,” Maloney said. “Both
Ozzie and Harriet go to work now, so most families no longer have a stay-at-home parent to care for
a new child.” To see more, go to: http://maloney.house.gov/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1582&Itemid=61.
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Bill Would Raise FEHBP Coverage Age for Young Adults
Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., introduced a bill March 6 that would boost the maximum age that qualifies
for dependent coverage under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) by three years,
to age 25. The bill, HR 5550, is necessary so that a dependent may not “age-out” of health
care coverage, said National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) President Colleen Kelley, who supports
the measure. Kelley noted that young adults are the fastest-growing age group among the uninsured. “Health
care is simply not available to many of them at a price they can afford,” Kelley said. NTEU said
that while FEHBP is the nation’s largest health insurance plan—insuring more than 9 million
federal employees, retirees and their families—the program has been unable to shield feds and
their families from sharp increases in health care premiums. The inclusion of more young adults to
the FEHBP pool of health care participants, however, could lower the average overall costs of group
coverage, the union said. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform. To see more, go to: www.nteu.org/PressKits/PressRelease/PressRelease.aspx?ID=1230.
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VA: Number of Homeless Vets Drops 21 Percent
The number of veterans homeless on a typical night has declined 21 percent in the past year, from
more than 195,000 to about 154,000, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced on March 6. The
department offered a number of reasons—from new services offered by VA and its community partners
to changing demographics in the homeless veterans group itself. VA provides health care to about 100,000
homeless veterans, and compensation and pensions to nearly 40,000 of them annually. This year, VA said,
the agency has approved funding for more than 12,000 beds in transitional housing programs, in addition
to providing about 5,000 veterans each year with residential services in VA hospital-based programs.
Other factors in the decline of homeless vets, VA said, include a substantial reduction in the number
of poor veterans—from 3 million in 1990 to 1.8 million in 2000—and improvements in counting
homeless people. To see more, go to: http://www1.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=1464.
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