* The Tribune has an excellent piece about what’s actually in the new workers’ comp reform legislation…
The proposal would address possible abuses by dumping most of the arbitrators who currently hear cases for the Illinois Workers Compensation Commission. The idea is to get rid of those hearing officers who may have “cozy” relationships with attorneys representing workers, Raoul said. New arbitrators would be appointed by Gov. Pat Quinn, and must be confirmed by the state Senate. Arbitrators would also be required to be licensed attorneys, participate in ongoing training and would have their job performance reviewed every three years.
Arbitrators also would be required to used American Medical Association guidelines when rating a workers’ impairment after an injury, and there will be a beefed up review process to provide some standardization when it comes to the type and amount of treatment a worker receives.
The plan would also cap the amount of payment workers get for carpal tunnel claims, setting a limit that would allow workers to collect 60 percent of their average weekly salary for 28 weeks. The current average payout is spread over 40 weeks, Raoul said. To prevent “doctor shopping,” a network of medical providers will be set up by the Department of Insurance, and workers would not be able to receive benefits if they were hurt because they were under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Business groups pushed hard for higher burdens of proof that an injury happened on the job, saying workers could get hurt on the weekend but claim it happened at work. They didn’t get the standards they wanted, but the proposal would put into law several court decisions that require a worker to prove an injury happened during the course of employment.
The Medical Society and the Hospital Association are opposed. Labor, trial lawyers and the Illinois Chamber are neutral. The Illinois Manufactures’ Association, Illinois Retail Merchants Association and the Chicagoland Chamber are in favor.
* Hopefully, this will help the state’s economy. But things are already looking up a bit more…
Unemployment dropped in April in each of Illinois’ 12 metro areas for the eighth straight month, the state Department of Employment Security said Thursday. And officials noted that — aside from flood-soaked Alexander County in southern Illinois — the jobless rate dropped in all of the state’s counties.
The state Department of Employment Security says the biggest year-over-year drops in the unemployment rates were in two of the state’s most economically troubled metro areas. […]
Elsewhere, the Chicago-Joliet-Naperville metro area, the state’s largest, saw its unemployment rate fall from 10.7 percent in April 2010 to 8.7 percent last month. The area added 37,400 jobs over that period.
One sign of an improving economy in the Chicago area was a drop in April in mass layoffs — 50 jobs or more — that companies are required to report to the state. Big layoffs cost the area 446 jobs in April, a little over half the 810 jobs they ended a year earlier, according to Department of Employment Security records.
* More…
Ten was the magic number for Decatur-area unemployment in April: In its 10th month of consecutive decline, the unemployment rate finally fell below 10 percent.
The rate was 9.7 percent, compared to 12.2 percent a year ago, according to Illinois Department of Employment Security statistics released Thursday. It was the first time April’s rates fell below 10 percent since 2008, when they were 5.8 percent.
* More…
The Galesburg April unemployment rate followed the trend of other areas across the state and dropped sharply. The Illinois Department of Employment Security reported the April jobless rate in Galesburg was 7.6 percent, down from 8.7 percent the month before.
* More…
Unemployment in Jefferson County dropped from 8.5 percent to 7.9 percent in April.
The rate has continued to drop, with the rate in February this year at 8.7 percent, March at 8.5 percent, followed by the latest numbers released by the Illinois Department of Unemployment Security at 7.9 percent in April.
The rate is down substantially from April 2010, when unemployment was at 9.4 percent.
* Speaking of workers’ comp, the governor needs to stop this court case right now…
Things hit a new low this week when the Illinois Department of Central Management Services — a department under the governor’s control — chose to go to court rather than comply with the state’s open records law. At taxpayer expense, CMS hired the Chicago law firm of Holland and Knight to file suit Monday in Cook County Circuit Court to deny the Belleville News-Democrat’s request for records in a controversial series of workers’ compensation settlements involving employees of Menard Correctional Center.
The Illinois Attorney General’s Office, the official arbiter of Freedom of Information Act issues under the new law, had ordered CMS to turn over the records. Among other things, CMS argues in its 31-page brief that the attorney general missed a deadline in filing its order, thus relieving CMS of the burden of obeying the Freedom of Information Act.
So here we have the governor who lauded and signed into law the new Freedom of Information Act suing the elected official whose office was empowered by that law to interpret and enforce it.
What an embarrassment this should be for the Quinn administration. What an outrage it is for the citizens of Illinois.
- Excessively Rabid - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 8:27 am:
If Quinn has any leadership qualities at all, he needs to summon them up and put a stop to the stonewalling from many agencies on required release of information.
- David Barish - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 8:28 am:
You report that the trial lawyers are neutral. I am a member and I oppose. Imposition of AMA standards will be a disaster for Illinois workers. As a lawyer I will always figure out a way to succeed. My clients will suffer. There is tremendous contraversy over the latest, 6th edition, of the AMA standards. Pain will no longer be legitimate. Awards will be significantly reduced. If premiums are signficantly reduced to employers this will be a fair trade that was made on the broken backs of Illinois workers. The system will costs less and pay less. My advice to workers, don’t life that box. Its not worth it. If premiums are not reduced this will be a much greater fraud than any ever alleged to have occurred at Menard.
- the Patriot - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 8:36 am:
The AG does not want the records released either. The AG shares responsibilty for the defense of the claims with CMS. Most of those cases were processed by someone in the AG’s office with CMS.
The beauty of this is the taxpayers have hire a lawyer to defend CMS. If the BND wins, they are entitled to attorney’s fees. So if the BND wins, we will have to pay attorney’s on both sides.
Only IL could screw something up this bad.
- in the field - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 8:40 am:
This all looks like common sense. Hopefully the culture of claim anything and get rewarded can end.
- Pat Robertson - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 8:45 am:
==What an embarrassment this should be for the Quinn administration.==
How can anyone at this late date think this administration has even the tiniest sense of shame?
- Good times in Illinois - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 8:52 am:
To David Barish: It is my understanding that the AMA standards are for guidance purposes only. If that is the case, the libaral Commission will treat the AMA just like they have with utilization reviews (which were supposed to save businesses tons of money when the Act was changed in 2005). To the Commission, “guidance” means “ignore.”
I am curious how much the alleged cost savings they have attributed to the AMA. Hopefully, businesses will realize that whatever changes occur with the Act, it won’t matter unless there are changes in the work comp commission administration and certain commissioners. The arbitrators have been unfairly attacked because of a couple of downstate arbitrators.
In then end, I guess both sides are of the position that if neither side is completely happy with the deal, then it must be a good one.
- Will County Wiseguy - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 9:18 am:
You have to wonder who advises the Governor. Nice guy, but he seems to make so many errors in judgment. Surely he can’t be making these terrible decisions totally on his own. I thought he stood for transparency in government. And is Holland and Knight running the State? The pipeline for former State agency legal counsel seems to end at Holland and Knight. Need to check their campaign contributions to see what they pay to get their substantial share of State legal business.
- Cincinnatus - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 9:31 am:
Will County Wiseguy - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 9:18 am:
“You have to wonder who advises the Governor.”
Shiny squirrels.
- dupage dan - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 9:40 am:
Re CMS & PQ. Most citizens of this state don’t even know what CMS is or what it does, let alone understanding the total insanity of CMS hiring a private law firm to fight the attorney general.
Maybe that’s what PQ is counting on - our ignorance. Given the fact that RB was elected twice as gov gives PQ much confidence in that area.
- Marcus Agrippa - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 10:08 am:
In light of the fact that there is a Democratic legislature and government the Chamber should be happy. It take away so many rights from working people without really addressing the problem (medical, insurance, and procedural reform).
- Marcus Agrippa - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 10:16 am:
What BND is looking for is EMG/NCV tests that were done on employees. These are electrical tests designed to determine if there is nerve impingement. The want to be able to write a story that says “see, see, there is fraud because some of the EMG tests are negative so there wasn’t carpal tunnel.” Any honest hand surgeon will tell you that a negative EMG does not mean there is no carpal tunnel. There is a high rate of false negative tests. What I would be interested in is whether the treatment in these cases is by one doctor or a number of different ones. If a number of different doctors are all coming up with the same diagnosis then it is doubtful that fraud is taking place. If it is one doc doing all the surgeries then further investigation would be warranted.
- Shemp - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 10:28 am:
I don’t know that Governor appointed work comp arbitrators is what I’d define as progress….
- wordslinger - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 10:31 am:
Holland and Knight is an interesting choice. They’re political bigfoots in Florida, but a relatively new player in Chicago, having scooped up and existing firm here a few years back to prime the pump.
But, yes, Quinn should just shut it down.
- Louis G. Atsaves - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 10:59 am:
David Barrish is correct on the AMA Standards. There is a lot of controversy about the new version of them being accurate. Using them as one of the guides Arbitrators will use will not lead to the reform proponents are looking for.
Firing all the Arbitrators and returning to the “bad old days” when incoming Governors fired all of them and then hired his buddies” is an even worse solution. The overwhelming majority of Arbitrators who did their job honestly are being punished for the wrongs of one or two of them through firing. The one-two-three year “terms” guarantees that the best and the brightest will not be appointed. Who will take such a job for a one year term and no job security other than those lawyers no one else wants to hire or someone who is retired? That’s not progress and I foresee the quality of the “new” appointed Arbitrators dropping to the detriment of all.
CMS should release the documents requested in the Menard dustup. The whole Menard prison comp deal smells to high heaven and the sooner everyone discloses everything the sooner corrective action can be taken on that subject.
As I said the other day. The whole thing is. Insanely. Stupid!
- Quiet Sage - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 11:13 am:
If you are interested in improving job safety, it is best to abolish the workers’ compensation system in its entirety. Workers’ compensation assures payment of benefits to workers’ injured on the job, but it also limits employers’ liabilities to statutory levels. These limits on potential liabilities are the reason employers initially supported the establishment of state workers’ compensation systems just before World War I. Abolishing workers’ compensation would make awards to injured employees much more uncertain, as they would have to prove fault on the part of their employer. Some employees would lose their cases and not receive any payments at all.
On the other hand, employers would become vulnerable to huge damage awards in favor of injured employees who won their civil cases. Under the present system, employers can fairly accurately estimate their future costs resulting from employee injuries, and factor it in as a cost of doing business. With uncertain civil awards that could potentially break their finances, employers could no longer meaningfully estimate their aggregate liabilities resulting from employee accidents. Thus, the employers would have an incentive to drastically improve job safety.
- bigdaddygeo - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 12:36 pm:
CMS is just part of the bureaucratic overlords that control activity in this state. Isn’t it interesting that Pat Quinn, who is essentially CEO of the executive branch, Lisa Madigan who was elected as the state’s lawyer and all the lawyers who work as in-house counsel for CMS - who I believe are Assistant Attorneys General, can’t get CMS to comply with the FOIA request. They can’t even stop CMS from hiring outside counsel and filing a suit to keep a judge from forcing them to comply. If constitutional officers can’t influence CMS, how do you think Illinois vendors are treated?
- Brian - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 12:54 pm:
I will not be suprised in the least if insurance rates do not go down. I have seen first hand how insurance companies and their adjusters mishandle claims and end up wasting vast sums of money. Then they just jack up the premiums they charge.
This proposed legislation is going to hurt injured workers badly and the insurance industry will be scoring major profits. In the long run more and more injured workers will be going onto public aid as a result of this ‘reform.’
Businesses and the insurance insustry are using the Menard Prison scandal as a scapgoat. Menard has little or nothing to do with the current workers’ compensation system and is a direct result of the corruption in state government. The attorneys working for the state were supposed to be defending all of the worker’s comp claims brought by Menard prison employees. As usual the state was not doing its job when it authorized payment of the settlements.
- Anonymous - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 1:45 pm:
CMS is an out-of-control monster. Thompson realized he’d made a mistake in putting so much authority into CMS so many of the functions were returned to individual state agencies.
Blago re-centralized so many functions that it is almost impossible to get anything done. Quite an achievement.
Sorry to see that Quinn The Reformer has chosen to go to the dark side on this issue. But it is part and parcel of his actions in office. He has really fallen a long way.
While Brady would have been a disaster as Governor, Quinn is in no was an even decent or average executive. His holier-than-thou act wore out a long time ago.
- 1776 - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 2:50 pm:
This bill requires both doctors and arbitrators to USE the new AMA standards.
- bob - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 3:08 pm:
There is no shame until the full details of the WC fiasco is exposed.And it’s doubtful that will happen.The Menard issue reaches into patronage job holders that have direct connection to PQ and others in the administration,it’ll die a quiet death,unless the Feds get involved.
- Da Real Dirt - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 5:30 pm:
Lou & Dave: the real questions are not addressed by the “agreed bill” and you both know it. With a legal standard that the work activity need only be “a cause”, how do you two ever loose a case? I mean the law essentially holds that a worker can testify that he felt worse after an event and that is enough evidence for his burden of proof. Give us the increased burden of proof on causation and the abuses to the system end.
- Louis G. Atsaves - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 5:56 pm:
Da Real Dirt: Contrary to the propaganda driving this issue right now, I need to prove that an injury arose out of and in the course of the employment in order to “win”. That is the current standard of causation. That standard is the same in all 50 states.
When I handle a defense case, I need to prove that it didn’t arise out of or in the course of the employment.
Recently, I was able to prove that the injury occurred “in the course of” the employment but that it did not “arise out of” that same employment. We lost.
I saw a Forbes blurb which stated that an employee only needs to state that he was injured on the job, and the money rains down from the heavens. If it were that easy, I would have retired 10 years ago and sailed the world on my yacht. Unfortunately, it isn’t and I still don’t have my boat, not even a canoe!
Hearings are conducted using the Rules of Evidence (just like Circuit Court) and witnesses including claimants testify (by swearing to tell the truth) under the threat of perjury. A court reporter records all testimony and a record or transcript of all evidence is prepared.
The cases are heard before Arbitrators who currently are trained and well-versed in the law. The Arbitrators serve 6 year terms which are renewed unless the Commission feels that they did not perform up to par or ethically. A few Arbitrators in the past have been dismissed in such a fashion FOR CAUSE under this system. The Arbitrators are civil servants and are treated as such. At least right now. Now they will all be fired FOR NO CAUSE unless folks realize what a disaster that proposal is.
Now they will all get swept out and new ones hired for 1, 2 or 3 year terms by reimposing an old “to the victor belongs the spoils” approach. A new Governor used to appoint 30 or so of them to terms and fire the old ones, causing all kinds of problems until the current “civil servant” system was created replacing the old patronage one. That reform that will now be undone occurred something like 40 years ago.
Hope this answers your questions.
And to answer a question posed as to AMA standards, the Arbitrator currently determines the disability rating. Under this proposal, the doctor gets to state a disability rating for the Arbitrator to use, diluting his/her authority in the matter. Some doctors are overly “employer” and others overly “employee” leaning so expect the same injury to have two different sets of numbers from those types of doctors. The Arbitrator will then be forced to adopt one or the other opinion or impose their own. Those AMA standards will not be the panacea that some folks are making them out to be with those types of IME physicians around.
- Da Real Dirt - Friday, May 27, 11 @ 6:47 pm:
Lou: My comments pertained to medical causation. Yes, you have to still prove that the “risk” was incidental to the employment. Let’s see, walking on concrete is a risk, rolling desk chairs are a risk, getting a message on a flight layover is a risk, and reckless conduct short of a felony is a risk.
How do you explain the potential for “stacking” wage differentials, PTD, and non scheduled injuries resolved by award or settlement.
For the record, I do not like the new proposed Act for many of the reasons you pointed out. It’s the IWCC appointees that need closer examination, not the hearing officers, as many of whom are not attorneys. Interesting that some of the Blogo appointed Commissioners resigned days after he was arrested.
- truthteller - Saturday, May 28, 11 @ 6:38 am:
What a great idea to have arbitrators appointed for three yrs by the Guv w/ Senate approval.Maybe we should do it for judges, too, to make sure we have decisions based on the law, not on politics.
Give me a break! Whatever problems exist with the arbitrators now will only get worse when you put them on a tight political leash.
And what about doctor choice. Conservatives screamed about Obamacare, alleging we’d lose the right to pick our own doc. Now the employer who has a vested interest in denying expensive treatment is going to make the pick.And cinservative pols on both sides of the aisle, ever-eager to please their corporate benefactors fall into line.
You call this reform? Only in Illinois!