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Business Group Wants to Reshape The Debate Over Workers’ Comp

Business Group Wants to Reshape The Debate Over Workers’ Comp

OPINION

by Howard Fine

Some recall backers are already fed up.

Just days after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his workers’ compensation reform package and said he would take it to the voters if the Legislature didn’t pass it, one employer group has decided not to wait to see what happens. Instead, it has prepared its own workers’ compensation initiative for the November 2004 ballot.

The Independent Business Coalition, which has staged periodic rallies on workers’ comp over the past two years, has submitted a six-page initiative to the Secretary of State’s office. What’s more, Ted Costa, the anti-tax activist who helped launch the recall effort that landed Schwarzenegger in Sacramento, has signed on to help.

The coalition’s initiative contains more far-reaching reforms than those Schwarzenegger has outlined. If his proposals aren’t approved by the Legislature, there’s the possibility that the two employer-sponsored initiatives will compete on the November ballot.

More likely, though, the initiative may be an attempt to shape the workers’ comp debate, something that coalition president Tom Hagerman alluded to last week.

“The advisers to the governor are undershooting the mark,” Hagerman said. “We are working hard to get them to adopt our proposals.”

Under the current standard, a “substantial” portion of the injury must be work-related. That would change under the initiative to “predominant” (more than 50 percent).

It would also require that all injuries be substantiated with medical evidence, which would invalidate most back injury claims. Finally, the initiative would absolve employers of some responsibility for “repeat” worker injuries that first occurred at a previous employer.

“These changes get at the root of the reasons why the system has spiraled out of control,” Hagerman said. “If we were to go with what the governor has proposed, I guarantee you we’ll be right back here five years from now trying to figure out how to rein in workers’ comp costs.”

Fine writes for the Los Angeles Business Journal.

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