North Dakota Workforce Safety and Insurance Needs Urgent Fixes

Tuesday, February 26, 2008 | 0

There have been few issues that have grabbed the headlines more than the turmoil at North Dakota’s Workforce Safety and Insurance (WSI). As a state legislator, I have been focused on bringing political accountability to WSI and restoring a system meant to help North Dakotans injured on the job site.

Thinking back to my first campaign, concerns regarding WSI once focused on the treatment of the injured worker. Since that time, WSI has experienced criminal indictments, talk of slush funds, employees asking for whistleblower protection and the resignation or firings of many of their top executives and board members.

Enough is enough. It is clear that new leadership is needed now more than ever. For this reason, when I announced I was running for insurance commissioner last November, I stated it was time to use the Insurance Department’s expertise in regulating private insurance to help right the ship at WSI.

The first thing that must be done is to restore executive branch control of WSI. From there, we must look to the expertise already within the state government to help craft a better system to serve the injured worker. We must continue to look to the State Auditor’s Office for performance reviews and financial audits to make sure WSI remains effective. There should also be immediate reform of WSI’s Office of Independent Review to make sure that it is separate and truly independent. I voted on legislation this past session to move the OIR to the Department of Labor where it could be ensured that every injured worker’s claim would be treated fairly. Unfortunately, partisan politics got in the way and the bill was defeated in the House on a vote along party lines.

These partisan games in the Legislature and within WSI are the reason we need leadership in the Insurance Commissioner’s office — someone with the know-how and experience to rise above partisan politics and help fix the problem. After all, WSI is, at heart, an insurance company, making it only natural that we look to the experts in the Insurance Department for guidance.

Additionally, the insurance commissioner should play an active role in WSI with regard to the rising cost of health insurance. When injured workers get unfairly denied workers’ compensation benefits, what happens? Likely, they still file their medical claims through their employer-covered health care plan, thus driving up rates for everyone else. With WSI reporting an upward of $2 billion in the bank and the recent Blue Cross Blue Shield 10% rate increase, it’s not hard to draw the conclusion that something is wrong here. Although North Dakota businesses may have low WSI premiums, when they aren’t paying it out one end in premiums, they are paying it out the other in the ever-rising cost of health care.

As an elected public official in the North Dakota Legislature and in my private capacity as an attorney, I help injured workers from all corners of the state with these same problems and have legislated on numerous WSI statutes. With these experiences in mind, my approach to oversight of WSI will be to ensure that the agency effectively performs the mission of serving injured workers.

However, more government alone won’t solve the problem. We need the right insurance commissioner working in an enhanced oversight role, leading a combined effort with legislators and executive branch officials to put partisan politics aside and collectively build a worker’s compensation system that serves the injured worker fairly and honestly. North Dakotans deserve nothing less.

-- By Rep. Jasper Schneider, who represents District 21 in the North Dakota Legislature.