Posted on 12/23/2004 7:46:42 PM PST by nickcarraway
The Schwarzenegger administration on Thursday filed emergency regulations governing benefits for permanently disabled workers, setting terms for a revision to the state workers' compensation system that would take effect Jan. 1. Business and insurance groups praised the move but attorneys for injured workers said that it would cut payments to below 1983 levels.
The new compensation schedule for workers with permanent partial disability -- those who can still work but whose injuries will impair their ability for the rest of their lives -- are intended to reduce costs and apply medical standards in deciding how serious a worker's injuries are. The state Department of Industrial Relations, through its Division of Workers' Compensation, filed the emergency regulations Thursday.
The new system has a medical evaluator assess the injured worker's impairment, based on American Medical Association guides. That assessment would then be refigured to adjust for the effects of, say, an injured shoulder on the worker's whole body, then adjusted again for the worker's occupation, age, and diminished future earning capacity to determine disability benefits.
The changes were authorized under SB 899, one of the workers' compensation reform bills approved in the past two sessions after skyrocketing workers' comp premiums brought protests from employers and forced some businesses to close.
"The new permanent disability rating schedule will reduce costs," said California Chamber of Commerce president Allen Zaremberg in a prepared statement. The new regulations, he said, "are based on national guidelines and will promote consistency, objectivity and predictability -- all things that are missing in our old, overly litigated, subjective and costly system."
The California Applicants' Attorneys Association (CAAA), which represents lawyers who advocate for injured workers, said Governor Schwarzenegger "left behind a lump of coal for California's injured workers."
The new schedule "severely reduces permanent disability benefits to injured workers," said association president David Schwartz, citing an association-sponsored study of 218 back, shoulder wrist and knee injuries. The study by University of California Davis professor J. Paul Leigh indicated that the new rules would limit injured workers to an average of 30 percent of the compensation they receive under the current system, Schwartz said.
"For those who work hard and are injured serving California, this is a devastating blow," Schwartz said. "It means that more injured workers will lose their homes, their cars and their hope, because they won't be able to survive on these pitiful disability benefits."
The American Insurance Association blasted those assertions, saying the study was flawed, comparing "apples to oranges" and concentrating on complicated cases, not the typical injured worker.
"CAAA's flawed study is just another attempt to discredit true and valuable reforms, and stop scheduled implementation of critical regulations," said Ken Gibson, AIA vice president of state affairs. "This defective study claims the new proposed rating system will dramatically lower disability ratings for injured workers - and that is just not the case."
Democratic legislative leaders last week sent Schwarzenegger a letter asking him to delay the new regulations, saying additional research to ensure that the new system accurately measures future earning capacity could have been completed in a few months but was stopped by the state.
In addition, "the scope of the benefit cuts from the proposed regulations would be much deeper and much broader than we agreed to," wrote Senate President Pro Tempore Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez in a Dec. 17 letter to the governor, attached to the CAAA news release. "We believe these regulations do harm legitimately injured workers," contrary to commitments made by Schwarzenegger during negotiations, the letter said.
The state Office of Administrative Law has up to 10 days to consider the proposed regulations, but may rule on them sooner.
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Business and insurance groups praised the move but attorneys for injured workers said that it would cut payments to below 1983 levels.
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Should read: Business and insurance groups praised the move but attorneys for injured workers demaguaged it, saying that it would cut their legal fees to below 1983 levels.
Dumping Dufus was great. But Arnold is a turd, and no amount of "conservative polish" will change that. Want proof? The MSM loves him.
Flame away.
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