Posted on 03/18/2009 6:16:13 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
A state advisory board today recommended a 24.4 percent rate increase for workers' compensation insurance effective July 1, ignoring Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plea that a rate hike that big would overwhelm California businesses.
The governing board of the Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau approved the recommended rate increase during a morning meeting in San Francisco.
WCIRB officials citing rising medical treatment costs -- not the number of accidents -- and other potential changes resulting from recent workers compensation appeals rulings.
The bureau will now deliver its recommendations to state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who is free to accept or reject the recommendations and release his own proposed rate increases.
Ultimately, insurance companies serving the workers compensation market are free to set their own rates.
But Poizner within hours issued a statement promising to convene a hearing to investigate why medical costs are "skyrocketing" in the system even as unemployment soars.
The hearing -- no date has been set -- will include testimony from doctors, insurers, workers' attorneys and organized labor officials, he said.
"The last thing that California's employers need is increasing workers' compensation costs when so many of them are struggling to keep the employees they have," Poizner said in his statement.
The insurance commissioner has repeatedly rejected the ratings bureau data in recent years, saying its analysis is narrow and its recommendations overly favor already very profitable insurers.
Last year, he pared the bureau's recommended rate hike of 16 percent to 5 percent.
The year before that, Poizner cut a proposed 4 percent premium hike to zero.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
This should help California’s over 10% unemployment rate.
Pure insanity. Why don’t they cut the amount of money for workers comp. There are so many scofflaws on it now.
Will the last business leaving California pleasr turn out the lights?
Wasn’t workers comp reform one of the first things Ahnold supposedly did...or was gonna do....or am I just losing my mind?
That giant sucking sound you hear is busineses leaving Kalifornia so fast they are creating a new jet stream and breaking the sound barrier.
Comp rates in CA have gone down a lot from their peaks prior to reform. Looks like the courts have whittled away at the reforms. It wouldn’t have taken much to do this, and suddenly lots more folks qualify for big benefits.
They likely need more reform now, but there is no way this legislature would consider it, no matter how high unemployment goes or how many companies flee the state.
Yes .. and umm. Yes. :-)
Golly... seems they really are trying to push business out of CA. Before you know it, only illegal aliens will live there.
rofl thought so....on both counts. ;)
as a conservative that was injured seriously at work in california I can state the system is broke, after Arnold took power he retro activly cut benefits, on folks already injured, yes retro activly, the premiums were paid, the claim made, and then wam, loss of medical treatment, and payments. would be illegal in all but the state. The Insurance companies bought the politicians.
Something all should know, under workers comp, you cannot sue your employeer if injured at work, even if they are found at fault, even if they knowingly broke safety laws. the State say that by giving up the right to sue, the state will mandate all employeers to buy insurance from private companies. It is a no fault system, they agree to pay a really small amount of pay, and give you limited doctors (yes my doctors were retroactivly pulled)
this is socailized healthcare at work. the politicans set teh amount of benifts by law, and dispite claims already made, the insurance companies effectivly changed the contract,
this has left many injured workers left only with social security disability so Arnold dumped the probelm on the feds.
The Arnold reforms eleminated the penalties to be apid by insurance companies when they fail to pay, now they constatnly delay payments with no fear of punishment
socailized medicine at work, I have back medical bills owed me for years.
it is rotten and crooked. and the insurance commisioner is no conservative, he ran as a pro-abortion cannidate, I remember that well. That makes sense, no concern for un-born babies, no concerned for legitiment injury claims by extremely injured workers.
this system is a joke, what ever you do, do NOT get hurt at work, and besure to buy additional income protection indsurance, even if your state has a generous workers comp plan, they can change it after you make a claim, the States word is worthless
Well, DUH. This reminds me of that trope about liberals always wondering why the jails are crammed full at a time when crime rates are falling.
These rubes will probably hire consultants and spend millions of dollars to "discover" that workers comp pays more than unemployment so people are faking injuries...slap the forehead!
I had a company in CA back in the 80's, early 90's. They always talked about reforming the fraud factories, but no one ever did anything about it. And it's apparently still going on.
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