Calif. Comp is OK: Just Don't Get Sick

Monday, December 21, 2009 | 0

By Jon Gelman

The Rand Corp. published yet another report evaluating the troubled California workers' compensation system. The report, in its esoteric evaluation, reflects on the poor financial judgment of the industry to meet the needs of the injured workers.

The study misses the focus and humanization of what workers' compensation is all about. The concept of providing a remedial and expeditious remedy to injured workers seems to have been left outside in the company parking lot.

The California problems are not isolated, they are nationally systemic. The system fails to delivery and fails to encourage a safer worker environment. More of the same old thing, as Rand recommends, ie. more business should be covered, and more premiums should be collected, just isn't going to cut it any longer.

Workers' compensation is fine, as long as a worker doesn't get sick. Dormant and latent conditions for the most part remain untreated by the present system. Preventive medical care is non-existent. Medical monitoring is a major struggle to secure.

Occupational disease cases have perpetually lingered through delay and denial tactics, and now the condition needs critical care that a bandaid will not cure. As the New York Times reports in results of a recent poll, the safety net has failed.

Nationally the system needs to re-worked. Injured workers need to receive medical care through an effective and efficient process and not left out in the streets to suffer. Congress needs to act to provide coverage through an expansion of the proposed national health care agenda.

Jon Gelman is a claimant's attorney based in Wayne, N.J. and the author of several text books on workers' compensation. This column was reprinted with his permission from his blog, http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com.