May 07--House Speaker Michael Madigan convened a rare committee hearing of the full House this week to highlight the difficulties of workers who get hurt on the job.
A number of workers from Illinois and some from out-of-state testified about the physical, emotional and financial hardships that followed work-related injuries. Their testimony was poignant and heartfelt.
They are the reason we have a workers' compensation system. No one is trying to take that away.
What Gov. Bruce Rauner and other supporters of work comp reform want is a system that protects workers who are injured on the job ... and controls insurance costs so those workers' jobs stay in Illinois.
Rauner spoke Wednesday to the Chicago City Council about the need for the state and the city to improve the local business climate. That's the key to higher employment and more tax revenue.
Rauner didn't mention workers' compensation in his remarks to the aldermen, but it's a good example of how Chicago officials could help support economy-boosting reforms.
Employers often cite the high cost of work comp insurance as a key disincentive to locating or expanding in Illinois. The legislature in 2011 revised some standards in the work comp system but avoided several key changes that would have had a big impact on costs.
As a result of the nibble-around-the-edges approach, Illinois is still one of the states with the highest work comp costs. It puts us in a poor competitive position.
The key failure of the 2011 law: It didn't set a clear standard for what's known as causation. That is, establishing that an injury or illness is directly linked to the work or the workplace.
An example: A couple of years ago the Illinois Appellate Court ruled that a worker was entitled to benefits after he was in an accident caused by icy road conditions while he was commuting to his job. The Illinois Supreme Court overturned that ruling in a 6-1 decision, but the case wound through administrative hearings and the courts because Illinois law was unclear.
Rauner is pushing for deeper work comp reform to bring Illinois closer in line with other states. According to his office, 29 states have a higher causation standard than Illinois. Some, including neighboring Missouri, are significantly higher.
The governor wants the Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission to be able to use more information to determine awards. Commission members could review the treating physician's diagnosis, along with the assessment of an independent medical expert and guidelines from the American Medical Association. Those standards have been shown to guide reasonable settlements in other states.
The fee schedule for medical payments in Illinois is higher than many other states. Rauner wants to lower what's paid for emergency services, surgery and pain management. That lowers payments to health care providers -- one reason why work comp reform runs into a lobbying blitz.
The state should take every step it can to protect against false or capricious claims. We remember the scandal a few years ago when the Belleville News-Democrat reported on prison guards who claimed injuries from turning too many cell locks and walking too much.
And there's the case in which the Illinois appellate court forced an electronics store to compensate an employee who hurt himself while slamming into a vending machine to dislodge a bag of Fritos.
The 2011 work comp reform law wasn't completely feckless. It did address some of the problems. But this system needs much more, reform that will still protect workers who suffer injuries because of their jobs.
