What's Next from the Springfield Thinkers?

Friday, April 22, 2011 | 0

By Eugene Keefe
Keefe, Campbell & Associates

Well, it appears our legislators on each side of the aisle fought to a draw on workers' compensation reform. The problem is, Illinois employers still come out the loser. We were advised the Illinois Democrats who run the Senate, House and Governor's mansion wanted to borrow something like $8.7 billion dollars to get their act together and pay bills that have been owed to their vendors for over two years. One funny one is the story our Illinois State Police don't shoot straight, as they can't get bullets for target practice because the bullet company won't provide bullets without getting paid. We are further told the Democrats need about $1.5 billion more to pay their state worker health care tab and other incidentals that money is due prior to the end of the fiscal year on June 30. Some of the money they are borrowing is to pay for the money they are borrowing, as they don't have any defined source of fresh money to pay off the new debt. In one of the worst recessions in U.S. history, we are less than thrilled to see all these billions in red numbers bouncing around.

We were told one of the facets of the borrowing-of-billions required the Democrats who hold majorities in both state houses to reach across the aisle to the nice folks from the Republican party. The men and women from the Republican side countered the request for cooperation with a little tit-for-tat; effectively, the mantra was "we will assist you in getting out of the financial mess you have made if you help us to cut workers' comp costs for Illinois business." Everyone focused on the state of Oregon's metrics showing Illinois has the third-most expensive workers' comp system in the United States. To the extent our WC costs are only below the nice folks in Alaska and Montana, we point out those two states combined have about one million people less than the current population of Chicago; in short, Illinois has the highest WC costs for any populous and industrialized state in our union.
 
The lead WC reform bill for the Republicans was Senate Bill 1349. That bill had a number of major reforms including providing employers with choice of doctor, cutting medical reimbursements, limiting wage loss differential claims to age 67, changing the burden of proof on intoxication/drug use claims and much more.
 
The most important legislative reform concept in SB 1349 and what became the "poison pill" is an interesting controversy. The Republicans wanted a new "causation" standard to require work be at least 50% of the cause of a deleterious condition or what they called a "major contributing cause." The touchstone of the problem seen across the state is the "scandal" of the Menard Correctional Center where over $10 million in workers' compensation benefits have been awarded in the last three years for untenable claims involving carpal and cubital tunnel repairs. At present, in a facility of about 500 workers, there are 277 prison guards and administrative workers with currently pending and effectively indefensible workers' compensation claims for similar "repetitive trauma" injuries. Due in part to the wildly lax standard of proof, the state of Illinois itself has 25,000 pending claims, costing Illinois taxpayers an obscene amount of over $130 million and more every year. We assure our readers the State of Illinois pays more for workers' compensation benefits than most Fortune 100 companies pay on a nationwide basis every year.
 
The problem we foresee with a legislative "causation" standard is "rock beats paper"hearing officers and reviewing courts can easily trump just about any legislative reform because all the language is subjective and subject to interpretation. Illinois' WC system got along for about 90 years, from the inception of workers' compensation in this state beginning in about 1909 until about 2002, with a common sense causation standard. Beginning with the election of our last felon-governor and the domination of the Workers' Compensation Commission by the Illinois Trial Lawyer's Association, we feel Illinois lost any modicum of common sense to the extent:

• A truck driver with a severe advanced bone disease who simply stepped out a truck, causing his foot/ankle to spontaneously crumble got full lifetime WC benefits in the Sisbro ruling;
• A truck driver with a back strain who was almost completely recovered and was forced off his personal motorcycle at high speed gets full lifetime benefits from his employer for the non-work-related fall in the ABF Freight ruling;
• An office worker with a lifetime of back problems and failed back surgery now gets years of lost time and full lifetime WC benefits from her employer for a "misstep" in the Barrington Orthopedics ruling.