Phyllis Borzi

Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration

(Labor Dept.)

Why She Matters

Thanks to the passage of landmark health-care reform legislation in March 2010, Borzi and the Labor Department's Employee Benefits Security Administration will have plenty of work to do. The EBSA regulates about 2.8 million health plans, and a similar number of other welfare programs that provide benefits to 150 million Americans.

Chosen by President Obama in anticipation of such legislation, Borzi has an extensive background in public health policy. She served as counsel for a subcomittee of the House Committee on Education and Labor for 16 years, and played an important behind-the-scenes role in Bill Clinton's attempt to overhaul the health-care system in the early 1990s, and the successful passage of more modest reforms.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: Research professor, George Washington University Medical Center (1995 to 2009); Attorney, O'Donoghue & O'Donoghue LLP (1995 to 2009); counsel for the House Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations of the Committee on Education and Labor (1979 to 1995)
Hometown: New York state
Alma Mater: Ladycliff College, B.A.; Syracuse University, M.A.; Catholic University, J.D.

Office: 200 Constitution Avenue NW, Suite S-2524, Washington, DC 20210, (202) 693-8300
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Path to Power

Borzi grew up in New York state, and attended Ladycliff College, a historically all-female Catholic school in Highland Falls, N.Y., where she received her B.A. She then went on to earn a master's in English from Syracuse University and a J.D. from Catholic University Law School where she was editor-in-chief of the law review.

Early House Career

Borzi started her political career relatively early; in 1979 she began working as pension and employee benefit counsel for the House Education and Labor subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations, a position she held until 1995.

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During the Clinton administration's push for health-care reform in the early 90s, she served on working groups dealing with insurance reform, workers' compensation and employer coverage. In 1994 The Washington Post listed Borzi as one of a few dozen behind-the-scenes congressional staffers responsible for "frantically" writing a collection of health- care bills that then-House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) hoped to pass after the failure of the Clinton plan. According to the Post, Borzi focused on existing labor and welfare laws which had to fit with the Gephardt plan.

Though major health-care legislation was voted down, Borzi was influential in a few reforms that did pass, including the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) which allows employees who lose or change jobs to retain their health-care coverage at their own expense.

In 1995, Borzi left her Hill post to accept a position as a research professor at George Washington University Medical Center's School of Public Health and Health Services. Her research centered on health-insurance related public policy. While at GWU, Borzi also worked for the D.C. law firm O'Donoghue & O'Donoghue, specializing in the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and other legal issues affecting employee benefit plans.

Obama Administration

Like many others that would eventually become part of the administration, Borzi was selected to assist the Obama-Biden transition team. She reviewed the EBSA policy and practices so that the administration would "be better equipped to understand and handle the tasks before them after Jan. 20," she told Pensions and Investments magazine.

The Obama administration nominated Borzi to head the EBSA on March 25, 2009, and she was confirmed unanimously by the Senate on July 10, 2009.

In her first year on the job, Borzi saw few major legislative developments prior to the passage of health-care reform, though she did help administer a federal subsidy to help fired workers pay for COBRA health benefits. Borzi is pushing to have the 65 percent subsidy extended to the end of 2010, but Senate Republicans oppose the measure since Democrats have not said how it will be funded.

The Issues

One of the major reasons Borzi was tapped for her position was her expertise in health-insurance policy. She has a strong track record of liberal stances on health-care reform, dating back to her role in the Clinton administration's attempt to pass major reform legislation.

Throughout her career, Borzi has expressed general support for organized labor and employees, sometimes in opposition to the interests of large firms. Yet because of her extensive academic career, she also enjoys respect from the business community.

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Health-Care Reform

Borzi has publicly supported state efforts to enact health- care reform. She defended Maryland's 2006 "Fair Share Act" requiring large firms to spend eight percent of payroll costs on employee health care or put that money into a state fund for the uninsured.

Wal-mart, the only firm affected, challenged the law on the basis that it conflicted with ERISA, which prohibits states and localities from interfering in the formation of benefits plans; in January 2007, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed and struck down the law.

In 2002, Borzi commented on the growing number of employers replacing traditional insurance plans with ''health reimbursement accounts'' or "health savings accounts," which give employees a set amount of money each year to spend on medical expenses. ''They can be beneficial in giving employees more choice if they are offered in conjunction with a comprehensive health plan,'' she said, but some employees worry that HSAs ''may be in the long run the first step in eliminating the employer's role in offering health insurance.''

Borzi has advocated taxing all large firms that self-insure in order to generate more funds for state-sponsored insurance pools for high-risk individuals. She has also suggested removing catastrophic-care costs from the private insurance system altogether - one of Sen. John Kerry's 2004 campaign proposals - with the hope that insurers would cover more people if they didn't have to pay for worst-case scenarios.

Organized Labor

When Borzi was nominated to the Obama administration, a business interest publication pointed to her advocacy of the so-called "Wal-mart Law" in Maryland as an instance of her support for organized labor. The AFL-CIO also supported the law, which effectively applied only to Wal-mart's non-union workforce. The editors called on her to "deploy [her] knowledge and insight in a fair and balanced way" that takes into account business and employer interests.

Yet Borzi also enjoys approval from certain elements of the business community. Jim Klein of the American Benefits Council, an employer interest group that advocates for voluntary private employee benefits, said she "wants to make sure that policy theories actually work in practice for employers and workers alike."

The Network

During the push for health-care reform in Bill Clinton's first term, Borzi worked closely with the adminstration and House Democrats to hammer out legislation, and she served on Hillary Clinton's Presidential Task Force on Health Care Reform.

Campaign Contributions

Borzi has a long history of political contributions. She gave $500 to Obama in 2008, and the same amount to Kerry in 2004.

She donated a total of $1,750 to the unsuccessful 2006 and 2008 campaigns of health policy expert Judith Feder (D) for Virginia's 10th Congressional District, and $250 each to Mark Pryor (D-Ariz.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) in the year each first ran for the U.S. Senate. Borzi donated a total of $3,000 in soft money to the DNC between 1993 and 2003.

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