U.S. Sen. Bob Casey took a kind of victory lap Tuesday in Pittsburgh, visiting the headquarters of Goodwill Southwestern Pennsylvania to celebrate a couple of long-delayed Democratic policy wins — even as partisan division over the federal budget looms.
Chiefly, Casey was on hand to discuss the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which went into effect this summer, roughly a decade after Casey first sponsored it. Modeled after protections in the Americans with Disabilities Act, the new law requires employers to make accommodations for the sake of pregnant employees.
“That took 10 years to reach a point where we had a bipartisan consensus” in support of the bill, Casey told a receptive audience gathered at the Lawrenceville facility. “We had to fill this gap — you might even call it a loophole — that employers could exploit [by] forcing that pregnant worker to choose between their job and a healthy pregnancy. No more.”
The bill’s impact boils down to two words — “reasonable accommodations” — that require flexibility from managers with pregnant employees. Such accommodations could include providing parking spaces closer to a workplace or more breaks to use the bathroom: Workers also could ask to be shifted out of strenuous or dangerous activities that could jeopardize a pregnancy.
Signed by President Joe Biden late last year, the act expands on previous federal protections that bar outright discrimination against pregnant employees, and that require at least unpaid family leave benefits.
Kelly Weaver, a United Steelworkers organizer focused on the needs of women workers, said the new legislation would ensure that pregnant employees “will still be able to earn their full wages, take care of their families financially [and reduce] stress in an already stressful situation for some. … It makes for healthier pregnancies and healthier babies.”
Casey said the outcome proved that “if you have the right idea to help our families and to help our workplaces, and you persist and drive, you continue to gather that bipartisan support, we can achieve the result that we achieved.
Still, he added, “I just want to make sure that the next time we have a project like this, it doesn't take us 10 years."
Casey’s visit also coincided with a major step for another long-cherished Democratic priority: allowing Medicare to negotiate with drugmakers on the price of medications. A provision of Biden’s year-old Inflation Reduction Act gave federal officials the ability to negotiate cheaper prices, and on Tuesday the government identified the first 10 drugs it hopes to bargain over. That list includes treatments for cancer, diabetes, heart problems and other conditions.
Medicare had long been forbidden from negotiating for better prices, and some drugmakers are anxious to keep it that way: A number of pharmaceutical companies already have filed suit to block the program, which can impose heavy taxes on drugs whose makers refuse to deal. Even without those suits, the new prices won’t go into effect until 2026, but Medicare will be able to negotiate prices for additional pharmaceuticals each year.
“This is real life for real people,” Casey said of the program’s impact. “It's a big breakthrough. But we want that list of 10 to grow to 20 and 30 and 100 and more.”
But he added, “The only reason this law passed is [because] Democrats voted for it. Not a single Republican voted for it.”
And the prospects for bipartisanship seem decidedly limited, going forward.
The federal government is once again facing a potential shutdown threat this fall as hardline conservatives in the U.S. House seek budget cuts they were unable to attain during a vote to raise the debt ceiling earlier this year.
Republicans control the lower chamber of Congress, but even Casey’s Republican counterparts in the Senate are reportedly wary of precipitating a shutdown. Still, that’s what is in the cards unless the parties can get a budget agreement in place by the end of September.
On Tuesday, Casey told reporters that “we’re hearing a little bit” that it might be possible to pass legislation to keep the government running — at least in the short term — at current levels.
Compared to having a more lasting budget deal in place, Casey acknowledged, “That’s certainly not ideal. But there’s only one reason that anyone is talking about a government shutdown. [It’s] solely because House Republicans … want to have a government shutdown, which is not good for anybody.”
