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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The sweeping workers' compensation legislation approved by lawmakers last month will generate at least $3.3 billion in savings, an insurance industry research group estimated Tuesday. The Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau said the legislation would cut statewide benefit costs by approximately $3 billion and loss adjustment expenses by about $300 million. That would translate into about a 2 percent to 3 percent drop in the so-called pure premium advisory rate recommended by state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi last fall, the bureau said. Many insurers use that rate as a benchmark in setting the prices they charge...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - State auditors Thursday slammed California's efforts to fight workers' compensation fraud, saying officials don't know the extent of the problem and don't have a real plan to deal with it. "The fraud commission and the insurance commissioner have not taken adequate steps to measure fraud in the system, develop a strategy to reduce it or ensure that the fraud assessment funds are distributed to most effectively investigate and prosecute workers' compensation fraud," chief state auditor Elaine Howle said in a report to the governor and legislative leaders. Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi praised the thoroughness of the audit...

A few hours after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders settled last week on a delicately balanced plan to overhaul the state's troubled workers compensation system, the lawyers who represent injured workers attacked the deal as a sellout to employers and insurance companies and an assault on employees hurt on the job. "INJURED WORKERS CHOICE OF DOCTORS IS ELIMINATED," the lawyers' statement screamed. "The injured worker can choose a doctor only from a 'closed panel' or pool of physicians selected exclusively by employers or insurers. Free choice from a pool of company doctors is no choice!" But here is what...

SACRAMENTO – A workers' comp reform deal headed for likely passage today nearly fell apart hours before a key deadline, when Senate Leader John Burton, D-San Francisco, stormed out of the governor's office, barking, "Hey, man, no hard feelings, I can't (expletive) do this." Burton had approached Schwarzenegger on Wednesday morning with a last-minute request from organized labor representatives that employees be able to choose their own doctors for treating on-the-job injuries. Schwarzenegger balked - he preferred his plan, which required employees to select from an employer-approved pool of doctors. Burton said he thought to himself, "'I can't do it...

If California is to rehabilitate its atrocious business climate, the Legislature must pass a compromise workers' compensation reform bill today. The measure is a legislative camel -- a flawed policy horse designed by committee -- but it puts significant reforms in place. That lays the groundwork for future legislation that can correct shortcomings that become evident later. If the compromise measure is not passed, there is a grave risk that nothing will be done. That is simply unacceptable. "I gotta tell you, there's no question this is not a perfect bill," said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles. "What it...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - California lawmakers faced a critical vote Friday to substantially overhaul the workers' compensation system with little more than what they call conjecture and anecdotal evidence that it will save the state's employers billions of dollars. The complex 101-page bill to overhaul the system was crafted largely away from the public eye and approved by a conference committee in the middle of the night. If legislators approve the plan as expected, they would pass one of the most substantial reforms ever to the 91-year-old system that features some of the nation's highest insurance premiums for employers and some...

Apr. 15--SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders cut a tentative deal Wednesday on workers' compensation reform and worked into the night on details of the landmark plan designed to save California businesses billions of dollars a year. A six-member bipartisan legislative conference committee was scheduled to begin deliberating Wednesday night over the agreement. If approved by the committee, the reform bill will face votes Friday on the Assembly and Senate floors, with passage representing a major political triumph for Schwarzenegger. "It saves billions of dollars, it reforms workers' comp and will allow jobs to be attracted to...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Mixing Hollywood charm with political muscle, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) has engineered a compromise bill for California's worker's compensation system, the most expensive in the nation. It is the latest in a string of victories for the Republican governor, and observers say the wins could allow him to dictate terms to the Democrat-controlled Legislature on virtually any issue. "Everyone is giving a wide berth to this guy. He's now viewed as the man who can make miracles happen," said Larry Gerston, a political science professor at San Jose State University. "He carries tremendous sway...

Statements by some trial lawyers that they are all but ready to oppose emerging measures to overhaul the state's dreadful workers' compensation insurance system seem to show intent to derail this critically important legislation -- even before a bill has been drafted. Obstinacy harms almost everyone when dealing with complex, contentious legislation like workers' compensation reform. The system as it exists is indefensible. Period. It must be changed. Now. At this critical juncture, no interested party -- trial lawyers, treatment providers and their professional associations, unions, non-represented workers, business groups, insurance companies -- should be taking absolutist positions. With that...

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - California's costly workers' compensation system, the most expensive in the nation and one of the main reasons businesses threaten to relocate, has hit the state's horse-racing industry so hard that trainers and owners are seeking their own solution.</p>

<p>As hopes disappeared Thursday for an agreement on workers' compensation by week's end, the support increased for a Republican-led effort to qualify an initiative for the November ballot.</p> <p>The influential California Manufacturers and Technology Association, representing 30,000 companies in the state, said it will help qualify the ballot measure in case the Legislature is unable to reach agreement on a workers' compensation overhaul.</p>

SACRAMENTO (AP) - California legislators began a 10-day Easter recess Thursday without solving the state's workers' compensation problems, but their leaders warned that they could be called back if there's a deal with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.Those costs have more than doubled, climbing from an average of 2.68 percent of payroll in 2000 to 6.3 percent in 2003, and are the highest in the nation. Both sides agree there are problems with the state's 91-year-old workers' comp system, but they disagree on the solutions. The Republican governor, insurance companies and business groups have been pushing legislation that would make it more...

<p>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, using a carrot-and-stick strategy on lawmakers considering new workers' compensation laws, offered a key compromise Wednesday even as he whipped up public support for a ballot initiative to bypass the Legislature.</p> <p>The governor, during an appearance at a Costco warehouse store in Roseville, opened the door to regulating insurance compensation rates, an issue Democratic leaders believe is essential. It "is definitely something to consider," he said.</p>

<p>ROSEVILLE, Calif. (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday that he's willing to consider state regulation of workers' compensation insurance rates as part of legislation to control the skyrocketing cost of dealing with workplace injuries.</p> <p>"It's definitely something to consider," the Republican governor told reporters. "We have to do everything we can to bring the costs down. We have to bring the costs down or otherwise more and more businesses will leave the state."</p>

As the Legislature works to pass a workers' compensation reform package, Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi has been encouraging insurance companies to do more business in California in the hopes that greater competition will drive prices lower. But Garamendi discovered that most insurance companies are more concerned by the dominant market share held by the State Insurance Compensation Fund than by the legislative changes being debated. In the meantime, some insurers are finding that it is already increasingly profitable to do business in California – partly because the legislative changes enacted last year are beginning to push down the cost of...

<p>The State Compensation Insurance Fund, also known as State Fund, is a workers’ compensation insurance carrier owned by the state of California, governed by a board appointed by the governor and the Legislature. However, it operates independently, much like a private company. The carrier brings in $5.5 billion annually from 265,000 policy holders.</p>

<p>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will temporarily stop accepting campaign money from insurance companies with a stake in California's workers' compensation industry, his fund-raising adviser said Thursday.</p> <p>The decision comes in the midst of contentious negotiations, involving Schwarzenegger, lawmakers, insurers, employers, doctors, labor unions and lawyers, over how to stem spiraling costs in an $18 billion-a-year industry that provides benefits and treatments to people injured on the job.</p>

Fixing workers' compensation comes down to changing the minds--and strengthening the spines--of a handful of power players in Sacramento. These powerful few must find what we pundits sometimes call the “political will” to take action that goes against their own short-term self-interest. This point was made rather amusingly on March 10 when Democratic state Senator Richard Alarcón of Los Angeles--who, along with a few other key legislators, bears responsibility for dragging out California’s workers’-compensation crisis in 2003--made a boob of himself in public. Alarcón misunderstood an e-mail, sent to politicos whose actions will determine whether Sacramento fixes this crisis or...

<p>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday ramped up pressure for a legislative deal to reduce workers' compensation costs, asking farmers to help him qualify a business-backed alternative for the November ballot in case lawmakers fail to reach a compromise.</p> <p>"Right now, we are gathering signatures, so if you see signature gatherers at the malls all around this state, go up to those signature gatherers, sign in, put your signature down and get a clear message out there, that you want to get rid of the fraud and the abuse of workers' compensation," Schwarzenegger told hundreds gathered outside the Capitol to celebrate California Ag Day.</p>

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California Lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) are near a deal to reform a workers' compensation system whose high costs, critics claim, have been a drag on the local economy, the state's Assembly speaker said on Friday. "I'd say we're 90 percent of the way there," Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez told Reuters. "I don't see why we wouldn't have workers' comp reform by the end of the month." Democrat Nunez's optimism comes amid a flurry of talks between lawmakers and the Republican governor on the state's insurer of last resort for workplace injuries....