40 Comments - Louis G. Atsaves - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 5:18 am: The State of Illinois was not victimized by the Workers’ Compensation system in the Menard cases. The State of Illinois victimized itself by paying out on all those dubious claims through settlements that no one else would have made under the same set of circumstances. The incompetence the State has shown in defending itself from such dubious claims coming out of Menard is shocking. The State needs to hire professional adjusters to handle the claims and instruct the Attorney General’s office to defend them, just like in the private sector. You can’t write that into a bill. Instead, the State is looking for scapegoats for their failures through CMS and the Attorney General. They found them by attacking all Arbitrators. Prior reports indicate the Feds are looking into the Menard situation. Here’s hoping they follow through. As a regular practitioner of Workers’ Compensation in Illinois for the last 30 years, all I can say is that the Menard situation stinks to high heaven and needs a complete investigation and if necessary, prosecution. To use the Menard example as a prime reason to “blow up Workers’ Compensation” is sheer nonsense. To blame Arbitrators for this situation who received the final settlement product for approval (as mandated by the law) is disingenuous. The Arbitrators who approved those settlements were damned if they approved them, and damned if they wouldn’t approve them. Firing every single Arbitrator and replacing them with new ones subject to the whims of the governor and big players in the system would be to return to old abuses that were stamped out dating back to the Walker administration when new administrations would come into office, fire all existing Arbitrators and hire all their buddies to replace them. Hey wait! Governor Quinn worked for Walker back then and at one point drew some paychecks out of the Workers’ Comp system. If he longs for a return to those ugly days, he is seriously misguided. That’s not reform, that is “deform” and the people pushing such a measure should be ashamed of themselves. The lack of transparency during negotiations of WC “reforms” during this session has been disturbing. There were some early public hearings then it has been closed doors the rest of the way. Blow it all up over Menards? Over AMA standards? Over insisting upon a standard of proof that no other state has? By politicizing the hiring and appointments of Arbitrators? By sending cases to overcrowded Circuit Courts to guarantee that injured working men and women wait even longer to receive benefits and that the limited liability now enjoyed by employers vanishes? Just. Insanely. Stupid. How sad for the State of Illinois, businesses and the injured working men and women of this State. If this is what the Governor’s office and the other major players are fighting over, then shame on them all. - Comstock - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 7:38 am: The Dems should wake up and smell the bacon. The Chamber will remain indignant about anything they get until they finally get the right to shoot injured workers on the spot, which they will *still* accept grudgingly. - Downstate - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 7:57 am: A clear case of abdicating leadership…. This reminds me of the activities with the civil unions bill, the General Assembly and DCFS. No one wants to take a position, or make hard choices. They simply want to avoid responsibility and let everything for the courts to decide. - Cincinnatus - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 8:09 am: Does “blowing up the system” mean the elimination of funding of all of the state workers who monitor WC in Illinois, or will those departments continue to be fully funded? - Excessively Rabid - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 8:12 am: Not a step to be taken lightly. If the cases are in the courts, a lot of deserving workers will get nothing. A few will get obscenely excessive amounts. But if the stakeholders - profiteers might be a better word - aren’t willing to talk about meaningful reform, this might be the best we can do, and it’s better than doing nothing. - zatoichi - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 8:30 am: And how many employers will drop their health insurance or see it skyrocket because the work related injury will simply be claimed on the employee health plan? And which health provider will gladly see injured workers? And the lawsuits will cost everyone how much extra in terms of time and money? And the legit injured worker gets what? - wordslinger - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 8:47 am: I doubt anyone believes Madigan is bluffing. It would be strange if anyone did. If it gets blown up, you start the arduous task of rebuilding from scratch. And who knows what you might end up with? Dangerous game of chicken being played. - Downstate - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 8:54 am: Depending on how they rule on work comp claims, judges might have a greater impact on economic development (or the lack thereof) than anyone else in the state. - in the field - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 8:57 am: Work comp is such an abused system. I am all for blowing it up. - in the field - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 9:00 am: “the legit injured worker”–is treated fine in any system. It is the other 80% of fraudsters(plus lawyers and neighborhood injury clinics) that abuse the system. - in the field - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 9:02 am: Just give employers the ability to “direct care” and you would make the system on par with Indiana in that the employer has a fighting chance of weeding out frauds by sending them to legit docs. - Champaign Dweller - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 9:04 am: You don’t want to blow up the system and flood the courts with these cases. Right now, injured workers receive no compensation for pain and suffering–if you force them into civil court, then the awards go up, although it certainly takes more time. Reform the system or punish those who misuse it, but don’t send these claims into court. If you think civil court moves slowly now, wait until the thousands of work-related claims end up there. - employee says - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 9:14 am: Look, at the very least the worker who is injured on the job is entitled to see the doctor of his choice and be compensated fairly for his injury. There is a cost to all of this as an employer whether you pay insurance premiums or fund it your self. Insurance companies will never lower rates no matter what system is in play because your sharing costs no matter if you’re the construction company or the mom and pop grocery store. The employeee, who is the innocent victim in all of this, should be the last to be affected by reform. You can get WC reform without penalizing the legitimate injured worker and reducing his actual benefits - jake - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 9:14 am: I am ambivalent. The proposal seems reckless on its face, and yet the last word I would use to characterize the Speaker is “reckless”. And it certainly is true that the system as it now stands is broken, and is a significant undue burden on the State’s economy. - lincoln's beard - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 9:16 am: This debate has featured almost every special interest group at their worst. It’s astonishing how parties on all sides profit from inefficiency, delay, and obfuscation in workers’ comp. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 9:29 am: The complaint of the business community have not fallen on deaf ears. Under Madigan’s bill, Illinois will have the lowest Worker’s Comp insurance premiums in the country. Of course, the next time a company drops three tons of marble on a 23 yo minimum wage worker, damages will not be capped at 500 weeks of pay. His widow and child will be entitled to emotional damages under the Wrongful Death Act. Another upside is that jury awards have a way of encouraging employers to improve workplace safety. The current system allows employers to manage liability through restrictions on post injury care and benefits. Without wc, employers will be forced to improve workplace safety if they want to reduce their liability. - Anonymous - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 9:41 am: Raoul has it right, if the kids cannot play nice, take them all out of the sandbox. Repealing the act just forces claimants to follow the same process as any other injured party. But, it must go hand-in-hand with zeroing out the entire budget for Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission plus any related WC positions across state agencies; when CMS was created suddenly HR staffers developed lots and lots of “other duties as assigned” to protect their positions and I expect the same behavior here. - Cincinnatus - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 10:05 am: Eliminating the IWCC would save many millions in administrative costs, as well as surcharges on WC insurances on employers. Here is the 2009 data, the last time the IWCC bothered to post financial summaries in an easy to find way: http://www.state.il.us/agency/iic/annualreport09.pdf - Shemp - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 10:08 am: Blow it up. Our organization spends years and thousands and thousands on legal fees negotiating settlements anyway in an effort to avoid even more costs in the work comp system. I don’t want to see workers given the short shrift, but at this point, we’re losing opportunities in the private sector and spending untold amounts of tax dollars in the public sector. - mokenavince - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 10:15 am: Blow it up it’s nothing but junk.Look around find a state that has a law, that adresses the workers needs first and implement a law based an that model. Were 49 th out of 50 states, the system is broke. We need jobs! - Chris - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 10:19 am: “wait until the thousands of work-related claims end up [in civil court]” Do you think the prison guards carpal tunnel from operating locks will end up in civil court? I’m unsure about whether blowing it up is the best way to go, but pretending that *ALL* the current claimants would end up in civil court is absurd. - Former Injured Worker - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 10:20 am: I got hurt on the job in 2003 and needed knee surgery. My employer denied it was responsible and I had to use my group insurance (which was from a different job, not the one where I was hurt) to pay for the surgery. I was lucky I had the group insurance because I was able to get the surgery when I needed it and get back to work pretty quickly after surgery. But then, the group insurance carrier started asking for it’s money back because all the medical records said (correctly) that I had been hurt on the job! It could have been a real mess but I hired a lawyer, and about a year later, my case was settled. My employer’s workers comp paid me about $30,000.00 for my knee which I guess is OK even though it is definitely not the same as it was before the surgery, and they also paid back my group insurance for my medical treatment so that the group insurance would get off my back and quit demanding that I reimburse them for my treatment. My lawyers took a fee out of what they recovered for me and the whole case was finished. I can get around pretty well on my knee and for me, the workers comp system was OK although I obviously would gladly give back the $30,000.00 in exchange for a completely healthy knee and being able to aviod all the aggravation of surgery, recovery, etc. What’s being talked about now makes me think that there are an awful lot of people without any group insurance right now. Without workers’ comp, these people are not going to get the treatment they need if there is no workers’ comp system. I got my treatment quickly and went back to work before my bills had piled up to the extent that I couldn’t pay my rent. But for people that get hurt on the job and don’t have any way to pay for their treatment on their own, how are they going to get medical treatment if there is no workers’ comp? How is somebody that falls off a scaffold at a construction site and has a broken arm even going to get seen at a hospital if there’s no requirement that his company have workers’ comp medical insurance? And without workers’ comp, there’s nobody to pay any benefit so he can pay his living expenses until he can go back to work. If people can’t get treatment right away they are going to be off work a long time which means they are going lose their houses and cars and everything. - Bigtwich - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 10:21 am: WE need jobs? This will do that. This is the lawyers full employment act. Any savings in administrative costs? Well we are going to have to fund Circuit Clerks and more Judges, more Courtrooms, more staff. - Drpipp - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 10:21 am: Representative Bradley’s bill was favored by business lobbyists in January 11 , now they want more. how can something that is more invassive for labor pass now in May 11 when labbor would not go along with a less invasive bill in January????? - D.P. Gumby - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 10:37 am: While there are some problems in WC, all the hyperbole is more “blame the worker” rhetoric. The Corrections officer cases are cherry picked the same way the pseudo-tort reformers cherry pick the McDonald’s Coffee case (though I don’t know what the true facts are in the corrections case are to know if it’s being as distorted as the McCoffee was). But no one in their right mind can possible believe taking the cases into court is in any way better than WC. Not only does that throw the baby out w/ the bathwater, it also throws out the mother, the father, and the grandparents. The vast, vast majority of WC cases are resolved efficiently and fairly for all parties w/ limited costs. At a time when the effort is to take matters out of court into mediation/arbitration, abolishing WC is absurd. Where are the grown-ups in the room? - employee says - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 10:38 am: just eliminate the Industrial commission but not the act. Courts would then implement the act and employees would still have a right to get things done quickly, like wages and medical. You also need the statute of limitations that is in the act (3year or 2 years from last benefits) or some cases would be time barred by the 2 year statute for negligence claims in court. Courts woulde be full of corporate lawyer’s pointing the finger at each other as to who’s fault it really was. - allmessedup - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 11:21 am: i talked to a friend who makes these locks for prisons. they are all electronic…now eat your peas - Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 11:30 am: @Bigtwitch - I agree that eliminating WC will be a boon for corporate defense lawyers. This will ensure them a nice, steady paycheck. Again though, when corporations are no longer able to manage their liability by capping benefits, they will have to manage their liability by reducing the frequency and severity of injuries. Forklifts are a great example. Every year, there are more than 20,000 people injured in the workplace by forklifts, and a worker is killed by a forklift every three days. You’d THINK that employers would respond to this epidemic by dramatically increasing workplace safety rules and training. You’d think that in the 106 years forklifts have been around, some manufacturer would have installed basic safety features like a safety clutch that make it impossible to overload the forklift to the point where it will tip over (25% of injuries), or reduced the driving speeds so they can no longer cruise at unsafe speeds. LOL. Instead, they complain about worker’s compensation laws and push to reduce benefits to injured workers. Come on guys, we have cars that parallel park themselves. You can’t design a forklift that won’t tip over? - Steve Downstate - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 11:57 am: Sun-Times is closer to the mark. Flawed system, obviously, but burning down the house isn’t usually the most effective way of getting at rats in the wall. At least not if you still want a house in the end. - Demoralzed - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 12:42 pm: allmessedup, I’m not defending the shenanigans at Menard CC but as a side note to your comment, Menard CC was built in the 1800’s. No electronic locks. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 12:52 pm: Speaking of forklift injuries, this just out: Corboy & Demetrio Obtains $3.6 Million Settlement for Worker Injured on Dock “Mr. McDonald was picking up a delivery at Imperial Zinc Corp. in 2007 when the forklift being used to load his trailer backed over him on the Imperial Zinc loading dock…The accident was captured on videotape by a surveillance camera at Imperial Zinc Corp and became a key piece of evidence in the case. The lawsuit claimed that, in addition to improper training and supervising of its operation, Imperial Zinc and the forklift operator, Odorico Ortiz, violated basic OSHA rules…The settlement was the result of voluntary mediation conducted by retired judge Hon. Stuart A. Nudelman.” It’s hard to blame the worker’s compensation system or the lawyers when companies are running over people with forklifts. - DOC - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 2:02 pm: There is a ton of rhetoric from all sides. There has actually been a proposal from docs, lawyers and labor that would save $300-400 million. Business wants sole control of which doctor an injured worker can see. We know that many company docs delay and deny treatment that is commonly provided to patients with Blue Cross, Humana, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. The current system allows for all employers to have a doc of their choice see the worker to have a second opinion and balance the situation. Trust is an important part of the patient physician relationship. No patient will trust a doc who is completely beholding to the employer. Patients need access to quality physicians of their choice. We need the arbitrators to effectively consider all the evidence and make fair rulings. That is possible in the current system but not universally enforced. We need to enforce the rules that are already on the books. That is likely to be one of the things we uncover at Menard Prison. Another hang up is utilization review. There have been proposals that empower these reviewing docs far beyond any other review model out there. We need to make sure that the medical treatment decisions remain between the doctor and the patient. If your Orthopedic specialist recommends a certain treatment, that opinion should not ba able to be completely overturned by a nurse practitioner 1000 miles away who has no orthopedic training and has never met you, talked to you, examined you or read any of your studies. If that worked, we wouldn’t need doctors. We could replace them all with robots reading algorithms. Another point is all of this talk about fraud. This word is being misused constantly. If a worker is injured and is compensated for an injury an employer does not feel is appropriate, that does not make that case fraudulent. I hear businesses say this all the time. It is a total misuse of the word in an attempt to make things sound as though we have a state full of crooked workers. The fact that the number of accidents reported in Illinois has fallen by 63% over the last 15-20 years makes it unlikely that ther are tons of new fraudulent cases being filed. In the end, I agree that something needs to be done. With the current economy and the need for jobs, everyone needs to tighten their belts. A bill that saves $300-400 million is a good place to start. Lets not forget that healthcare is the biggest employer in the state and slashing the bottom line for hospitals across the state is not going to increase jobs either. A recent Illinois Hospital Association study showed that when pairing work comp fee cuts with recent Medicaid cuts, there will be a 40% increase in the number of hospitals operating with a loss for a total of 200 hospitals losing money. That too is unsustainable. This is a complex issue that should not be oversimplified by any business, doctor, lawyer or worker. - DOC - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 2:33 pm: reply to in the field As a doc who treats injured workers and also does independent medical evaluations for employers, I have seen both sides and can assure you that company docs are more often chosen on the basis of cost and the tyoe of opinion they provide rather than the quality of care they provide. A prominent company doc in my area is notorious for this. I’m treating a patient now who was sent back to full duty without a proper evaluation only to find out he had a broken back and was being forced to shovel snow with that injury. I see that type of scenario weekly. - Loop Lady - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 3:52 pm: Madigan must be part of the combine wanting to strip workers of not only their pensions, but the right to compensation when they are hurt on the job. Sure, there are abuses, but throw the baby out with the bathwater? I guess he really is a Republican in disguise…I’m sure all the Latino voters in his district will really like this idea… - Paul - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 4:17 pm: I completely agree with Doc. As a wc attorney, I see abuse every day. It’s not the abuse that is being mischaracterized in the media. It’s abuse by insurance companies, employers and doctors. Many doctors are hired by the insurance companies to provide adverse opinions so that they can deny a work comp case or cut off disability or needed medical treatment. Most of the public never sees this abuse, but it happens every day. Let’s start with one simple fact: Thousands of workers get injured each year. Let’s add another fact, most of these injured employees are hard workers who did not intend to get hurt. Many people have enjoyed criticizing injured workers, grouping them all into some category of scammers. I would guess that many of those who voice their criticism have non-physical jobs and have a very small likelihood of being injured. Try being on an assembly line making hundreds of (widgets) an hour, reaching overhead thousands of times a day, lifting heavy parts, operating vibrating tools, bending and twisting 5 or 6 days a week all year long or for many, many years. Or, try doing construction work, or brick laying, etc. Whether an injury occurs over time, or from a specific trauma, it may have a dramatic impact on a person’s life. Try doing all of this work with a torn rotator cuff (shoulder) or herniated disc (back) or carpal tunnel (wrist) or torn meniscus (knee), etc. Try doing it over and over again, even after surgical repair or other treatment and a return to work. How long will you last? Can you make it another 20 years? 30 years? Are you A 6ft 5” body builder who can handle the pain, or a 5 ft single mother of 3 trying to make ends meet while you suffer through another day of pain. What happens when a doctor, hired by the insurance company, says that your injury is not work related, even though you never had any symptoms before the accident. You think that never happens? I don’t see that reported in the papers, so it must not. Guess again. It happens all the time. What happens to that worker if he or she has no insurance? Or even if he or she does, who pays for the time off or the deductibles and co-payments? How can one afford to provide for his or her family, mortgage, rent, food, etc., when they are home recovering from an injury that is being wrongfully denied? I have seen peoples’ lives ruined: losing a home or car, broken marriages, etc. all because the abuse - not from the injured worker, but from the employer who is angry that an employee can no longer keep up with their work due to an injury, an insurance company, bent on saving money, or the doctor who get paid to provide a defense rather than an honest opinion. Since it often takes months or years to litigate some of these claims, even in the end, when the injured party is compensated, their lives have been ruined. Let’s add another fact: There are very, very few fraudulent claims by employees. And, by the way, there is a mechanism in the Work Comp Act that allows prosecution for fraud. It has been utilized, and should be for those who are dishonest. If there was fraud in the Menards case, it should be dealt with as fraud and prosecuted. There is nothing to suggest that fraud is rampant. If so, you would have heard of allegations of thousands of “Menards” type cases. Employers would have inundated the Workers Compensation Fraud Unit with claims. I suggest those who are interested investigate how many fraud claims these employers have actually made over the years. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 4:58 pm: Its great to read all these firsthand accounts of the wc system - DOC - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 6:17 pm: Paul makes several good points. It speaks to the abuse of the word fraud as well. I listened to one employer at a work comp forum say that he is outraged that an employee who worked for him for years being paid well now has the nerve to file a claim. The fact is that if that injury occurred at work, then a claim should be filed. It is not fraud just because the employer does not like the fact a claim was filed. Why should Humana have to pay for the treatment if it was work related? Why should I as an employer now have to pay more for my company’s group health coverage because Humana raised its premiums to offset the work comp cases? Why should I have to pay more in taxes to support this person’s disability because the employer did not foot the bill? Why should I pay more in taxes because the medical treatment was inappropriately billed to Medicaid? It may not seem fair to the employer, but work comp costs are part of the costs of doing business just like other insurance, payroll, etc. Cost of business certainly should not be shifted to me or anyone else not benefiting by the profit the companies see. That same employee must have been a good employee to remain employed there for so many years. That employee produced goods and services that the employer in fact profited from regularly. In a free market system, business should not be allowed to privatize profits (keep all money earned) and socialize the losses (pass cost of business to the public). When looking at costs, we should also look at insurance reform. There needs to be greater transparency. Let’s look at the last year’s stock prices for a few companies: United Healthcare up to $45 from $22, Humana up to $71 from $43, Cigna $45 from $29 and Aetna at $40 from $25. One should look at the comp carriers as well. Doubling stock prices in 12 months does not indicate a business in distress. Other businesses who are leading the charge for reform are also doing quite well. Caterpillar for example posted the highest percentage increase in profit amongst all fortune 500 companies last year. Their stock about doubled as well. Obviously, they’re hurting. I don’t see any doctors, hospitals of other healthcare providers posting numbers remotely like that, and yet all the press coverage would have you believe the manufacturers and insurance companies are dying while medical providers are getting rich. When you consider that Medicare pays docs the same fee for a spinal decompression today that they were in the late 1970s (no that is not a typo), it seems to reason that they should collect a fee at a multiple of that to remain solvent. It’s not so much that the comp fee is high but that the Medicare fee is low. Most Orthopedic specialists lose money or at best break even on Medicare cases. By the way, Illinois does not have the 2nd highest comp medical fees in the US. Most of our border states do not have a fee schedule and are paid usual and customary rates which are in fact higher than what is paid in Illinois. Again, this is a complicated system that needs careful attention paid when amending the system. Again, with the current economy, everyone needs to th=ighten the belt. Doctors have agreed to a degree of fee cut to help. Our goal, however, should be cost savings, not cost shifting. Our goal should be to provide timely, quality medical services to those injured so that they can be made whole if possible and continue as productive, tax PAYING members of society instead of becoming a disability tax BURDEN on the state and society. - Paul - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 7:48 pm: Excellent points raised by Doc once again. I think your quote, “In a free market system, business should not be allowed to privatize profits (keep all money earned) and socialize the losses (pass cost of business to the public)” says it all! That should be the headline, rather than the constant degradation of the injured worker. The theme of the business community does not surprise me. The fact that so many people are fooled by it (including our legislature) is really sad. The focus of reform should be by individual employers, making there place of business a safer work environment. This is often not a main priority…. or not nearly as important as profit. I have seen unbelievable risks employers take with employee safety driven by profit. Who should pay the costs associated with those risks? We know who ultimately suffers. Did we learn anything from the Pinto case? I don’t think labor should be or will be forgiving if they get burned. It is the legislature’s duty to know the facts, and not get swept by false claims and hidden agendas. - Paul - Wednesday, May 25, 11 @ 8:03 pm: One other point - Workers rights should not be used as a bargaining chip by our legislature because of the tax increases passed this year. When congress makes decisions based on these type of trade-offs, they ignore the real impact it will have on hard working citizens and their families. Rushing through so called “reforms” in order to placate one group at the expense of another, is reprehensible. The Governor and the legislature owe the people of Illinois much more than that. We did not elect them to play us like poker chips. I ask the each elected official to spend a weekend living in the home of a worker who was seriously injured on the job and in treatment. Spend time talking to the employee, and his or her family. Get a clearer picture of what it is like being an injured worker in the system - or fighting for benefits - before making drastic changes. - forensician - Saturday, May 28, 11 @ 2:13 pm: this is typical overreaction by both houses, struggling to find relevance in the massive problem of Illinois employment. Full and complete execution of current law could have brought the offending arbitrators to justice. The “fraud” division section is already in existence. Find out why these noble legislators failed to fund it. And “we the people” are leaving reform in their hands? I say recall them all and let new elections sort it out! Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.