Daniel Weintraub: How to get (California) state workers comp that really works

Sacramento Bee ^ | February 15, 2004 | Daniel Weintraub

[calcowgirl]

Californians who are injured at work spend more time off the job than do people in almost every other state.

Is the Golden State inherently a more dangerous place to work? It doesn't seem to be. Do workers here suffer more crippling injuries? No. Is the health care in California substandard? That's never been alleged.

[BCrago66]

I was in California about 6 weeks ago, and the McDonald's I ate at posted a sign apologizing to customers, and explaining that because of the high cost of Workman's Compensation, it was adding about 50 cents to every burger. That might seem trivial, but if a giant corporation like McDonald's could not absorb WC costs without a price increase of about 10%, you can imagine the amount of of small Californai businesses outright driven out of business.

And it isn't just California. In a prior life, I was a bike messenger, and that delivery service is relied upon by metropolitan businesses, large and small. After I left, my old company was put out of business by Pennsylvania WC costs.

Thus from 2 concretes I may draw an abstraction: Workman's Compensation sucks ass.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

There was one proposal for California to use Arizona's Workman's Comp plan. I wonder what happened to that? I believe AZ has one of the lowest WC rates in the country.

On another note, I heard that in Illinois, no employee had ever lost a WC claim.