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CCWC Weekly Update Returns from Extensive Travels
The CCWC Weekly Update returns this week from a two week hiatus that found the Weekly Update traveling to Maui for vacation, Washington D.C. for a speaking engagement, and Las Vegas for business. The Weekly Update is happy to be home and hopes to not see an airplane for at least a few months.
The CCWC Weekly Update is well rested and ready to continue reporting on the news out of Sacramento! |
Act Now to Support CCWC Advocacy Efforts!
In December 2008, the California Coalition on Workers' Compensation mailed each of you a 2009 Dues Renewal invoice. We want to thank all of you who have already submitted your dollars and renewed your pledge to preserve the 2003 and 2004 reforms.
CCWC is an organization dedicated to aggressively defending the workers' compensation reforms that have led to job creation in the private sector and saved tax dollars at the local level. Without the support of our membership, there would be no advocate in Sacramento representing the broad spectrum of California's public and private, small and large employers.
Your membership dollars are the only way that CCWC can continue to have a voice inside the Legislature and with regulators across the state to ensure that our state's workers' compensation system does not return to the way it was. If you have questions about your dues invoice or did not receive it, please call us immediately at 916.441.4111. |
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CCWC 2009 Annual Conference Presentations Online
If you have any problems accessing these documents, please contact Amy Lai at 916.441.4111 or amy@ccwcworkcomp.org. |
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CHSWC Reveals Involvement in Labor-Management PD Negotiations
Staff for the California Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation (CHSWC) released a memo distributed to members of the commission that explains their involvement in legislative negotiations between labor and management commission members.
The memo was accompanied by a CHSWC staff analysis and draft legislative language that was previously believed by many to represent the final product of a "deal" that had been cut between labor and management. However, the memo confirms what parties have repeatedly indicated --- that the documents were simply a reflection of good faith discussions between a small group of employers and labor representatives that were attempting to reach consensus.
The Package
The CHSWC staff analysis and draft legislative language outline a potential reform package that could benefit both injured workers and California's public and private sector employers. The package would reform some troubling aspects of the workers' compensation system in order to create savings for employers. A portion of those savings would then be redirected to injured workers through increased permanent disability benefits.
The package would seek to accomplish the following:
- Legislatively address the Almarez/Guzman and Ogilvie cases;
- Reign in uncontrolled lien filings;
- Improve the QME process to increase efficiency and reduce delays;
- Eliminate the 15 percent bump up/bump down for return to work;
- Eliminate the Supplemental Job Displacement Voucher;
- Defer PD advances when an injured worker is back at work;
- Change the structure of PD benefits to provide the same number of benefit weeks per percentage point of PD;
- Eliminate duplicate payments for spinal implants;
- Better control fees for ambulatory surgical centers; and
- Eliminate the RTW program aimed at small employers because it has had no benefit for employers
CHSWC estimates that the savings associated with the package would range between $793 million and $1.5 billion. However, this assumes that every change included in the current package should or would be enacted by the Legislature. At least one of the provisions -- the complete elimination of the Supplemental Job Displacement Voucher -- could present problems.
While it is unclear how much of the savings would be redirected to permanent disability benefits for injured workers, the CHSWC analysis contains scenarios that produce a benefit increase between $242 million and almost $2 billion. |
