Rule Bars Employer Bias Against Workers With AIDS

WASHINGTON â€”  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Tuesday adopted interim rules designed to ensure that employers do not discriminate against workers with AIDS or other disabilities when providing health insurance.

The independent panel drew up the “enforcement guidance� for its investigators to enforce portions of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990.

The rules, which take effect immediately but may be changed later, puts the onus on employers and insurance carriers to justify any provisions of their health plans that discriminate against employees with such conditions as AIDS.

An EEOC statement said the guidelines are based on requirements of the 1990 law that:

* Disability-based insurance distinctions are permitted only if the employer-provided health insurance plan is bona fide and the distinctions are not being used as a subterfuge to evade the law.

* Employees with disabilities must be given equal access to whatever health insurance the employer provides to non-disabled workers.

* Employers may not make employment decisions about any person based on concerns about the impact on the health plan of the disability of that person or of someone else with whom that person has a relationship.

“Because the employer has control of the risk assessment, actuarial and-or claims data relied upon in adopting a disability-based distinction, the burden of proof should rest with the employer,� the EEOC said.

The guidelines provide several methods for employers to provide that proof, including submitting actuarial information on which the decision was made.

“If the employer asserts that the disability-based distinction was necessary to prevent the occurrence of an unacceptable change in coverage or premiums, or to assure the fiscal soundness of the insurance plan, the evidence presented should include non-disability-based options for modifying the insurance plan and the factual data that supports the assumptions and-or conclusions,� the EEOC said.

Health insurance plans put in place before the disabilities law was enacted on July 26, 1990, are subject to the regulations as well as those created after the act took effect, the EEOC said.