would the mayor support that, having independent information given to the city? >> i believe the mayor did support that in the budget he just signed and i think it's going be a telling factor, as we look over the next year. >> olse said, from what i understand, they're not going to be auditing these businesses so would you support that they aq the mayor be in support of that? >> yes, i think it depends on your deaf nation of audit, as complaints go in, let's audit those companies. >> independent verification of information. >> when they do that follow-up, that is their independent verification. >> you would be support to do what they're doing but nothing beyond what they're doing? >> over the next dwraoer and as we look at the 2012 data, look at that in the context of how

much more work do we need to do, have the results changed significantly as we hope they will, and also get olse's assessment on what further resources they might need. >> i would respectfully disagree, i don't think we have to wait and see that a report con firs many of us already know which is that this is a problem and i would hope that we would be supportive and we would get support from the mayor's office so that the verification is not complaint-driven because complaint-driven verification is reactive, it's not proactive, i think we need to be proactive and that's the question, would the mayor's office be commit today a proactive verification so we are not waiting until we know that something's a problem to do? -- something? >> what the different innovative ways that we do

outreach more extensively, to educate employers about what their responsibilities are and to educate employees of what their rights are. >> again, no answer to proactive verification. >> i will continue with the mayor's response to the civil grand jury. for finding number 2, i don't think the department responded to that one t city has not investigated related surcharges to determine whether employees are generating [inaudible] that we did disagree with that finding, the mayor supported and signed legislation amending the health care security ordinance and looked specifically at this issue, we are going to put a fine point to in the next year's report.

so, finding 11, employees with would or more employers would have two or more hra's for what constitutes medical expenses and with differing time limits, so we said partially disagree because there wasn't a partially agree answer, while there could be two or more hra's which is absolutely true, time limits are now standardized as per the 2011 amendment. finding 12, hra's may not be an allowable option in reading the requirements, partially disagree, just in that we simply don't know what the affordable care act will bring and we are watching very closely for when the rules and regulations are issued, and i think at that point as a city, we'll need to sit down and quickly address what this means fwr the health care security ordinance. finding 13, financial incentive to retain hra funds could be a

motivating force for employers to access employee funds to those funds. that certainly could be the case. i think the motivation behaind what that financial incentive is, we don't always know, it could be to retain more money for the profit of their business, it could be to augment employee's salaries or to hire more workers so i think there's varied motivating factors for companies. finding 14, by submitting personal medical invoices directly to their employers, employers are forced to reveal their private history, employee protection regarding health status and the majority of hra's are administered by a third party, if there is data showing privacy concerns, then this should be become part of policy discussion. as i mentioned earlier, as we do our qualitative, our focus groups, this is what we oar

going to ask people about to gain more feedback on that point and moving on to the recommendations, recommendation 1, disallow employers subject to the olse to pay for employer mandates and mandated paid sick days will not be implemented, the mayor's office supports businesses knowing how to cover their costs within their individual business model, our key focus is to be clear about removing consumer fraud issues, recommendation to re-- we supported the treasure and tax collector's response, it is outside of their pursue for recommendation 3, we also support ted district attorney's response, for recommendation 4, disallow the employer hra

option, the response will not be implemented, the hra while being used by a relatively small percentage is an important tool for businesses in respect to coming into compliance with the hdso, so we're trying to strengthen hra practices, putting a lot of attention and putting some sunshine on that, to ensure that employees are aware of the benefits available to them and employers make those benefits available and know what their responsibilities are under the health care security ordinance, recommendation 5, eliminate time limits for employees to use their mra funds, gph spoke to this and we deferred to their response. any questions? >> thank you, anything else? >> colleagues, any additional questions? wonderful, thank you very much. we'll next hear from rob black from the golden gate restaurant

association which voluntarily respond today the civil grand jury request. >> good afternoon, supervisors, i'm the executive officer, we represent a thousand member locations of restaurant locations throughout the bay area, we've been around since 1936, one of the oldest restaurant associations in the country. i'm here for a cum of things, one, i want to clarify that we are a non-profit trade association in way affiliate witched the city and county of san francisco, the grand jury statute, authorizing statute of penal code section 925 which instruct it is grand jury to inva*es gait and report on the operations accounts and records of the offices, departments or functions of the county, so the fact that this report doesn't do that and that a non-profit was demanded responses to fill those inappropriate and outside

the scope of what the grand jury should be doing w that said, since we were mentioned in the report, we did voluntarily as supervisor wiener said submit responses, and i'm happy to go through each of the responses, there were 11 requests for findings and then three recommendations. i will say our findings were very similar and also on the recommendations side to those of the various departments. i think where i would -- and i'm happy to go through them in detail if you would like, but where i would really i think focus the most would probably be on those recommendations, recommendation 1, disallow the employers from adding surcharges to pay for health care costs, and paid sick days,

we believe that is inappropriate, we would disagree with that recommendation, we would not if the bank of america uses at&t's to offset costs, we wouldn't say they would have to offset at&t fees, similarly, we don't believe it's appropriate in legislative approach to do that with surcharges on menus, recommendation 4, disallow the use of employer, the hra option, we disagree with that very strongly, in fact, when the golden gate restaurant association did litigate this case regarding whether or not there was a violation of [inaudible] in implementing the original ordinance, the city won that lawsuit, but primarily, it won that lawsuit based on the fact that -- and i

quote, the ordinance affects employers but it leaves plain administrators right, it does not force employers to provide any particular benefits or plans or alter existing plans, or to provide plans or employee benefits at all, we believe if the city were to try to ban hra's, there are hundreds and hundreds and businesses and thousands of employees who have that benefit that would be forced to change that benefit and therefore would not be legal, and then in regards to we were asked to comment on i believe finding 5, it is something that we're not -- we don't have a position on, it's an mra, it's the city's plan, so we did not comment specifically on that, but otherwise, i'm very happy to address any other questions or if you have any issues. er >> thank you, mr. black, colleagues, any questions, okay, thank you, so those are

all the presentations we have, i want to thank all the speakers from the departments for your comments and responses. we'll now proceed to public comment. i have -- supervisor compos? >> if i may, mr. khai, i know we have a worker, i was wondering if it would be okay to call upon him so he could testify, and that is graciano, yes. >> that's at the top of the pile, i have four speaker cards here, if i don't call your name and you would like to speak, please fill out a speaker card, i'm going to call graciano, rebecca and glen bare row. is there any other public other than those five, six? okay, great, so each speaker

will have two minutes with 30 seconds left, you will hear a soft bell and then a loud bell when your time is up, so mr. vasquez. >> supervisors, good afternoon, everyone. i've come here this afternoon to tell you about problems that i've had with some health insurance.

a friend of mine asked me to come here and describe to you problems that i had with my health insurance and that's why i'm here. i work at the cheesecake factory which is a food establishment, about four months ago, they asked me -- i

received some medical expenses and they used to reimburse me about 75 dollars at a time every six months up to about 400 dollars, and then when i no longer worked for that company, i was expecting a reimbursement, but did not receive it. so, i sent the application for reimbursement, a friend of mine helped me out and after a month when i didn't hear anything, i sent another application.

and so i called into the company that was administering the funds and they told me that it wasn't clear from the paycheck how much money they were taking out of my paycheck in order to cover the medical expenses. and so they kept asking me to send my paycheck stubs in, i sent stubs in, it clearly showed how much health care money i set aside but they still have not to this day made

any reimbursements. and when i stopped working there, a friend of mine told me that after three months of stopping to work there, they're going to take back all the money that had been reserved for my health needs. >> thank you very much, mr. vasquez. >> thank you very much, have a great afternoon. >> if i could just make one point to olse staff, i'm hoping there might be some follow-up with the cheesecake factory. >> before we get to ms. hail, let me call additional speakers, jim lazarus, kim jacobs and gordon mar, ms. hail?

>> i'm vera hail and today i'm here just as a restaurant goer and i'm one that objects to the as -- surcharge and glad to see that was part of the recommendations, when i buy something at macy's or amazon, i do not have to pay for their employee's health care. whenever i eat out, i only eat at mid priced or lower restaurants, so not everywhere do i eat is covered by this, but i've noticed that the places that i do are adamant about it and i talked to the server to find out what the problems are and most of them do not have it and don't know when it starts when i talked to

them. there was only one place that offered to remove my surcharge and when i complained about it and wherever i go, if it's on the bill, i complain, but nowhere else except this one place has offered to remove the fee. i think that all of these restaurants are doing okay by the number of people i see on them, they're not on the verge of closing, and i don't think that health reimbursement plan is a good idea. as a former director of an agency that had a clinic, it would not be enough health care to keep people really going and it sounds like it's madder to get it paid fortoo. i would like to subjecting that you have some health advice on these issues. >> thank you, ms. hail, next speaker e , his paris.

>> hi, my name is brenda paris, i work at a medical clinic in san francisco clinic, i've complained about this from the very bin -- beginning that the money is not getting into the health system and working on its way down to people who are providing the health. we're in the process now of doing a medical home program and so it's a lot of pressure being put on the workers and see what the patients go through every single day and there are people that should be covered that are working at these places that come to us not covered that can't get their medicine, that we have to do all kind of work around to make sure they get the health care they need, so it's my belief that the money for healthy san francisco needs to go straight into healthy san francisco, we need to cut out

the middle people, it's just another mechanism to black people from getting health care from what i see from the patient care end. >> thank you very much, next speaker, mr. lazarus? >> good afternoon, supervisors, chamber of commerce, we appreciate the opportunity last year and way back in 2006 in working with the city in developing healthy san francisco program, the health care security ordinance, it's a complicated issue, much that was broukt up from the grand ju, we appreciate their work and we cooperate yearly, thing that is are covered by federal law, it's not an easy solution, but the vast majority of san francisco businesses provide insurance and the vast, vast majority of son fra*ns businesses are spending required amounts of money, every survey and report by your

agency show that and supervisor campos has acknowledge hated but there is an issue with some categories of business, but we're working together, small business associations, the chamber on educating employers and employees on the rights and obligations under this law. we've worked with television ads on cable television, the city, websites, direct communication with members, thousands of employers have been communicated with by our organizations and by the city to understand how to make this work for the employee and how to make it work financially for the employer because you have to remember in the last half a dozen years, the cost of small business to employ entry level workers in san francisco has gone up 50%. that is health mandate, sick

leave, minimum wage, things we believe in, things that as san franciscans we support but things that have a tremendous burden on low margin businesses so we look forward to working with you over the next year as additional information comes in from the implementation of last year's amendment. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> hi, as you can tell, i'm not jim, my name is rosa, i'm hear on behalf of health access, california, advocating for affordable health care for all californians, we commend supervisor cohen and supervisor chu's efforts to develop an

alternative compromise legislation that was signed last year, and the mayor, however the fact that employers could reclaim health care dollars after two years did not end the incentive in our opinion of course to continue to place unreasonable expectations on these accounts, it's also our opinion that the legislation last year that didn't go into effect would have effectively closed the loophole. the office of fair labor standards report demonstrates that a large number of employers continue to place significant restrictions on hra's such as restrictions for dependent coverage, dental and vision care, we believe employers will continue to place these and other prescribers unless -- restrictions unless there are other restrictions, it's not that these funds come from nowhere, these fund should be there for these workers when they need it as previously stated by the worker that was

here today. we recognize san francisco as a leader in many ways in health care reform and we encourage you all to continue your efforts, but most importantly to close this loophole once and for all, thank you. >> thank you very much. >> mr. palson? >> supervisors, thank you, tim palson, i'm the executive director of the son fra*ns labor counsel, we represent thousands of people in town who do have health care due to the fact that they're members of unions and they were able to bargain for that, we did not close the loophole the last time around, as part of the huge coalition of people that work diligently over a year to get what is by far the most progressive piece of health care legislation in san francisco in 2005 to see that there is still incentives and we can see it because the horse is already out of the barn even

with the grand jury data they happen to use and i'm not optimistic the date -- data is going to change in any significant way, we did not close the loophole, people still get their money back after two years and that is an incentive for people not to buy health care, so i want to f*u for having this hearing, i want to thank the grand jury in looking into this and for being so intuitive, so i hope we get to the point where we close the loophole really in a way that people do get their health care as was the intention of the law. thank you. >> next speaker. >> hi, kim jacobs, i also want to thank all of you today for having this hearing and for the grand jury, the report they did which i think was essentially

correct, an important contribution. it's helpful to start in remembering why have a health care spending ordinance, and to understand, it was really an important element of san francisco trying to move towards universal health care because we know the city provides care to large numbers of working families, that employers, when employers don't provide coverage, that means there's a greater cost to the city and also by having the spending requirement, it levels the playing field between firms who don't and do offer health care, as we heard, the use of health reimbursement accounts as a way to meet the law has been growing, it's been discussed that san francisco's mra's pay outs, the national average where there are restrictions on accounts are 35%, it's hard to do a perfect

comparison, not all the populations are the same but it is indicative that the things causing the low pay outs are the xin nation of restrictions and not a lot information, the law amendment that was done did address notification, really it remains to be seen if that's enough, it's important to note that federal law requires employee notification and requires cober notices. we strongly encourage the city to continue monitoring this and appreciate supervisor chu's earlier comments that if we see that this is continuing, to really take action because that's what's needed. thank you. >> thank you, and before mr. mar, any additional public comment, please line up. >> great, thanks, supervisors, and i really want to thank

supervisors campos and cohen on all the work you did on this important issue and the departmental staff, and i want to commend the volunteer civil grand jury on nair work on this and i think the valid concerns about the data aside, i really feel like the grand jury's work reflects a broad, a strong feeling of broad segment of the community that this issue is not yet resolved and that workers continue to be denied their full health care benefit, consumers continue to be cheated and small businesses who are playing by the rules continue to be understood cut by low road competitors, so as you supervisors know, jobs of justice has been working with a coalition of small business community and labor groups on our campaign of small jobs and healthy communities where we're trying to support small businesses in the retail and

grocery sector and supervisor mar just introduced our first piece of legislation this week that incentive small businesses to provide healthier food options in underserved communities, allowing this loophole to continue is really incentive bad business options. it's the exact opposite of what we're trying to promote in our good jobs and great health campaign, we look forward to working with you as we continue to make efforts to close the loophole. thank you. >> thank you very much, is there any additional public comment, seeing none, public comment is closed. so, colleagues, supervisor compos? >> mr. chair, if i may, i'm going to have to leave because i have to chair the joint board of education, board of