CA 2012 Senate Insurance Committee Hearing On Workers Comp “Reform” SB 863; August 28, 2012
If you can please come on up we have Brad Chalk, president of the California Applicants Attorneys Association. Jason Machew, and injured worker.
somebody said all categories are covered. That’s true, all categories are covered except for those that aren’t. [laughter in room]
Babak Jamasbi, Dr., sorry if I mispronounced your name CSIMS president and Robert Larsen, M.D. CSIMS past President
Right? Everybody get’s an increase except for those people that don’t get an increase. And who doesn’t get an increase? The injured worker that can’t go back to their job.
So Mr. Chalk, we’ll begin with you.
My... Assemblyman Caldron asked the right question. Who’s protecting the injured worker that can’t go back to their job? And isn’t he being sacrificed for the greater good? And is that the public policy of the state of California, that we’re gonna throw those less disabl... I’m sorry, those more disabled under the bus in exchange for benefits for somebody that actually goes back to work?
And we do have... I apologize we do have less than thirty (30) minute here and one (1) more panel. So, do the best you can. BRAD CHALK, PRESIDENT OF CALIFORNIA APPLICANT ATTORNEY ASSOCIATION:
So, If I can just run through a quickly example. Under their proposal we have the AMA guides; let’s say they have an eight (8) percent injury under the AMA guides, and I don’t need to get into the details of all of that, but let’s just say for the sake of argument they have a back injury and they get an eight (8) percent under the guides. They’re telling you now that there’s a 1.4 modifier applied to that. So that’s a forty (40) percent increase, so that goes to twelve (12) and twelve (12) is going to be worth a certain amount of money. And that twelve (12) is going to be worth more money under this new system than what we have currently.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much to the Chair and the Vice Chairs and members. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation.
And then the next ... and so that’s great if that person goes back to work. What if they can’t go back to work? They get a fifteen (15) percent bump-up. Ok? Well, we currently have a fifteen (15) percent bump-up so they’re not giving us anything there. But, they’re telling you that it’s a fifteen (15) percent bump-up.
Yes, this conversation started every since 899 was passed. It was... we had an informational hearing as was indicated earlier, but the devils in the details and we didn’t get this bill until August 24th (2012) and now we learn today that it’s been amended again last night and we still don’t have that.
So let’s just say for the sake of argument that the twelve (12) percent is worth ten thousand dollars ($10,000). The fifteen (15) percent bump-up gives you another fifteen hundred dollars ($1,500). That’s great. They couldn’t go back to their job but they get an extra fifteen hundred dollars ($1,500). And that’s the trade-off for somebody who can’t go back to work?
And so, to say that... that the parties have an understanding as to what’s in this is. When the WCIRB (Workers Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau) report changes from four hundred million (400,000,000) last night to a positive one hundred million (100,000,000) today, that show’s you that we don’t know what we’re doing here.
So, then they say, “well we can still argue permanent and total disability.”
We don’t have the data and the numbers can’t be relied upon. I will say that the people that brought you 899 are attempting to bring you 863. And, we represent injured workers, we’re in the trenches every day and on some level we... we... we’re owed some credibility here. We told you 899 was flawed. We’re telling you 863 is flawed.
Art Levi sat here and said we still have 4662 accordance with the fact. What is a judge gonna do with that? A judge is gonna take that and analyze it against 4661... I’m sorry, 4660... the new 4660.1
So, I’ll just highlight some points. Not everybody gets an increase. Right? There charts show everybody gets an increase. I counted at least three (3) times today than
And what is... as it describes permanent disability. And what does that say? It’s based on the AMA guides. It’s not based on 12