EEOC's proposed wellness program regs in limbo

In early January 2021, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced it had sent notices of proposed rulemaking (NPRMs) on wellness programs under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) to the Office of Management and Budget to publish in the Federal Register. As of the date of this writing, however, the notices haven't yet been published. Read on to find out why the rulemaking activity has been halted at least temporarily.

Why nothing has happened yet

As you may have inferred from the date of the EEOC's rulemaking activity, the NPRMs were drafted by the Trump administration. As a result, they're subject to a regulatory freeze imposed by the Biden administration (a common procedure for new presidents). They won't be published unless they're approved by an agency head appointed by President Joe Biden.

If the rules are published, the public will have 60 days to comment. Until they're officially published (if that ever happens), you can access the current drafts for the ADA regs (http://bit.ly/3oZLGXO) and the GINA regs (http://bit.ly/3p2IMl3).

Can you incentivize vaccination programs?