States slash workers' comp protections, leaving workers broke and suffering

[This is not going to end well. ---Bozo]
Rss@dailykos.com (laura Clawson)
Saturday, March 07, 2015, 4:23 pm
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[Note - see source page for graph] Graph showing average workers' comp premium cost to employers per $100 of worker wages -- national level has fallen from $3.42 in 1988 to $1.85 in 2014.
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Employers are paying less, and workers are getting screwed.

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Workers' compensation is yet another of the basic worker protections that have been gutted in recent years, a ProPublica and NPR investigation finds. The details are horrifying:
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Since 2003, legislators in 33 states have passed workers' comp laws that reduce benefits or make it more difficult for those with certain injuries and diseases to qualify for them. Florida has cut benefits to its most severely disabled workers by 65 percent since 1994.
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Where a worker gets hurt matters. Because each state has developed its own system, an amputated arm can literally be worth two or three times as much on one side of a state line than the other. The maximum compensation for the loss of an eye is $27,280 in Alabama, but $261,525 in Pennsylvania.
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Many states have not only shrunk the payments to injured workers, they've also cut them off after an arbitrary time limit - even if workers haven't recovered. After John Coffell hurt his back at an Oklahoma tire plant last year, his wages dropped so dramatically that he and his family were evicted from their home.
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Employers and insurers increasingly control medical decisions, such as whether an injured worker needs surgery. In 37 states, workers can't pick their own doctor or are restricted to a list provided by their employers.
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In California, insurers can now reopen old cases and deny medical care based on the opinions of doctors who never see the patient and don't even have to be licensed in the state. Joel Ramirez, who was paralyzed in a warehouse accident, had his home health aide taken away, leaving him to sit in his own feces for up to eight hours.
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With all these cuts, employers and insurance companies are making out like bandits-the former paying the lowest workers' comp insurance rates in decades, and the latter raking in profits-while injured workers are left without care and forced to rely on government assistance to provide for them what their workers' comp should have provided. Read the whole article-it's another terrifying look into how badly American workers can expect to be treated by their employers and by lawmakers.
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