Congressman Joe Barton, R-Ennis, is about to get an earful on this latest issue coming out from the federal government: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to today’s Dallas Morning News, has just instituted a federal regulation that will allow employers to deny medical/retiree benefits to their employees.
I’m not making this up. But Barton, who voted for the Great Society-esque Medicare prescription drug benefit when the Republicans had every branch of government, should take a cue and quickly sponsor legislation abolishing the EEOC, which has absolutely no Constitutional authority to even exist, let alone throw out “regulations.”
1 Comment
December 31, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Not quite. What it means is that if an employer wants to abolish medical benefits that supplement or replace medicare coverage, it may do so without engaging in age discrimination, a subject within the jurisdiction of the EEOC. The rule says nothing about whether that employer might be in violation of contractual obligations, or might have liability under ERISA. Many companies, however, have language in their agreements with employees that allow them to terminate medical coverage of former employees when and if they see fit to do so. That is why some people were looking to EEOC for protection, which they now will not get.