Masonry Magazine April 2003 Page. 48
MCAA News
Lawmakers Push Bush's Small Business Health Plans
Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said more workers could get health insurance under a Bush administration plan to let small businesses pool together to buy coverage.
"Fully 85 percent of the 41 million uninsured Americans are in working families," said Chao. President Bush's proposal is "aimed squarely at the gap in coverage among small businesses," she said.
Chao spoke at a Capitol Hill news conference as lawmakers introduced Bush's proposal to let small businesses buy into group health insurance plans anywhere in the country. Association Health Plans (AHPs) are available now, but only in some states.
Rep. John Bochner, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said the measure "can help millions of small business employees access the type of quality health insurance that their counterparts in large corporations and unions already enjoy."
Bush's proposal opens up the patients' rights debate over holding health maintenance organizations responsible for harm to those they insure. The insurance pools would be under federal oversight, freeing them from patient protections required by dozens of states.
Foes argue that without state oversight, insurers offering the pools would "cherry-pick" younger, healthier workers, driving up costs for sicker workers.
"Pre-empting AHPs from state regulation is not a prescription for affordability and access; it is a prescription for higher health care costs and more uninsured Americans," said Mary Nell Lehnhard of Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, a major provider of small business coverage.
Fire Safety Tests for Building Materials Fundamentally Flawed
There is serious and growing concern among professional engineers about the test used to establish fire ratings for building materials. Michael A. O'Hara, P.E., SFPE, CSI, Chief Executive Officer at The MountainStar Group, Inc., in Minneapolis says, "Criticism of the test has intensified following the study published by the Federal Emergency Management Agency on the collapse of the World Trade Center." The test is known as ASTM E-119, Standard Methods of Fire Tests of Building Construction and Materials.
O'Hara, who is a registered fire protection engineer in several states, supervised tests conducted at Omega Point Laboratories, an independent testing laboratory in San Antonio, Texas, last April. The test was co-sponsored by the National Concrete Masonry Association and the International Masonry Institute.
According to O'Hara, "The test revealed that part of ASTM E-119 is fundamentally flawed because it allows some manufacturers to achieve a two-hour fire rating when their building products have been fire-tested for durability for only one hour." To illustrate this flaw, a gypsum wall assembly was exposed to fire for a full two hours to determine if the actual performance of the wall under fire conditions matched the assigned fire rating. Then, immediately following the two-hour exposure, a fire hose stream was applied to the wall surface. O'Hara said, "The wall disintegrated in less than one-half the necessary two and one-half minute requirement."
A 10 ft by 10 ft shaft wall was constructed with one side exposed to a controlled fire regulated by a gas furnace. The wall, made of one-inch gypsum wallboard liner panels covered by 1/2-inch gypsum attached to four-inch steel stud wall, was constructed to strict guidelines consistent Fire Safety, continued on page 48
Obituary
Bob Long, who was a representative of California mason contractors for over 30 years, died on January 28, 2003, at the age of 69.
Mr. Long was born in Oklahoma and the family moved to Southern California while he was still young. After high school, Mr. Long attended college and graduated from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Upon returning to Southern California, he started his masonry career in sales and management in brick manufacturing.
In 1970, he seized the opportunity to manage the Executive Council of Mason Contractors Exchange of Southern California, becoming deeply involved in labor negotiations, arbitration, trust fund management and apprentice training.
Along the way he worked closely with the Freeman Occupational Center in Los Angeles and the Regional Occupational Programs in Orange County helping to encourage young men and woman to consider a career in masonry. He also was instrumental in the formation of the Masonry Industry Training and Apprenticeship program in Southern California, which is now an extremely successful complement to the traditional apprenticeship programs.
Anyone that ever met Mr. Long knows that he was an individual that worked tirelessly for the benefit of the masonry industry and was always in a cheerful mood. He will be missed both as an outstanding individual and a dedicated industry ambassador.