A new ProPublica/NPR report summarized in an article in the Los Angeles Times, claims that , “over the past decade … state after state has slashed workers’ comp benefits, driven by calls from employers and insurers to lower costs. In fact, employers are now paying the lowest rates for workers’ comp than at any time since the 1970s. Nonetheless, dozens of legislatures have changed their workers’ comp laws, often citing the need to compete with neighboring states and be more attractive to business.”
The result, according to the report, is a grim “geographic lottery” in which compensation, including for lost limbs, varies depending on the state in which you were hurt. There are no federal benchmarks, and plenty of state-level political resistance to fix the problems. More broadly, erosion of protections across the states has had a devastating effect on families in which one of the wage-earners can no longer work, or work at full capacity, because of a serious injury on the job. The report claims “The loss of an arm, for example, is worth up to $48,840 in Alabama, $193,950 in Ohio and $439,858 in Illinois. The big toe ranges from $6,090 in California to $90,401.88 in Oregon.” …. “Given their profound impact on people’s lives, how much compensation workers get for traumatic injuries seems like it would be the product of years of study, combining medical wisdom and economic analysis. But in reality, the amounts are often the result of political expediency, sometimes based on bargains struck decades ago.”
A new report by the federal Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration argues that “changes in state based workers’ compensation insurance programs have made it increasingly difficult for injured workers to receive the full benefits (including adequate wage replacement payments and coverage for medical expenses) to which they are entitled. Employers now provide only a small percentage (about 20%) of the overall financial cost of workplace injuries and illnesses through workers’ compensation. This cost-shift has forced injured workers, their families and taxpayers to subsidize the vast majority of the lost income and medical care costs generated by these conditions.”
These criticisms have dated back for decades. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Act was enacted by Congress in 1970 and was signed by President Richard Nixon on December 29, 1970. The new law authorized the National Commission on State Workers Compensation Laws, a group appointed by President Nixon in 1971 to study workers compensation laws. It issued sweeping recommendations to upgrade state workers compensation laws, including higher disability benefits, compulsory coverage, and unlimited medical care and rehabilitation benefits. It recommended that all states pay totally disabled workers at least two-thirds of their salary up to a maximum of the state’s average weekly wage. Still, many states have not complied with the Commission’s recommended standard wage.
California responded to the Commission Report by adopting mandatory vocational rehabilitation. It was argued at the time that by embellishing the California system with this new benefit, the State would head off a threatened federal takeover of workers’ compensation systems adopted in the various states. Mandatory vocational rehabilitation was later proven to be a costly mistake, was modified and ultimately revoked by the California Legislature with little regret.
For some, the response to these studies would be based upon a famous quote from Ronald Regan. “There you go again” was a phrase spoken during the 1980 United States presidential election debate by presidential candidate Governor Ronald Reagan to his Democratic opponent, incumbent President Jimmy Carter. “There you go again” emerged as a single defining phrase of the 1980 presidential election.The phrase has endured in the political lexicon in news headlines, as a way to quickly refer to bringing certain issues up repeatedly.