Job discrimination bill to widen coverage

The legislation, which Bush has vowed to sign, overturns a series of Supreme Court rulings that limited who was covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Millions of Americans with diseases or impairments such as diabetes, epilepsy, heart disease, cancer and carpal tunnel syndrome will be protected from job discrimination under a new disability rights measure set to become law this week.

The bill, five years in the making, won final passage in Congress last week, and President Bush said he would sign it.

The measure overturns a series of Supreme Court rulings that sharply limited who was covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act. When it was first passed in 1990, Congress said the anti-discrimination law protected anyone with a "physical or mental impairment" that "substantially limits" them.

By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Full Story: http://www.latimes.com/business/careers/work/la-na-disability22-2008sep22,0,2819372.story