Glad to see that speeder and Rodeo still have the old ad hominem attack style down pat.

BTW, Rodeo, when you say God forbid, it's usually spelled with a capital G.

If you're ever wondering how a C- student can become President and have supporters think he's smart, look no further than this thread for clarification.

And FWIW, I think that it sucks when anyone scams the system and rips off the public, whether it's a fake Workers Comp claim or Halliburton over-charging for fuel in Iraq. One is a little more expensive than the other, however.

Yeah we be dumb because we disagree wid you! (not Mensa or english teacher approved);)

PS. Let's start a thread where only people w/IQ's greater than 120 are allowed to vote and reproduce.....

Not because you disagree w/ me. Because you cannot put together a cohesive argument that even agrees w/ itself. There are plenty of intelligent people around here with whom I have disagreements.

Denis, give the daddy credit for designing a beautiful, streamlined, and efficient dispute resolution system for workers!

The only catch is, it only works if there is no actual dispute to resolve :)


"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?" :)

Who said I was trying to streamline the system? Oh I get it, you never understood the premise. I should have known:)

Well, if your goal was to add an additional and useless layer of complexity to the workers comp system, you did a fantastic job! :)

For those holding fourth grade or greater comprehension skills:

My suggestion earlier simply provided the employer with an avenue for dispute of negligence and therefore financial responsibility where one does not currently exist. But then those of you that get it..........already got it:D

Brace yourself, this is going to be a shock.

We essentially have no personal liability claim (industry) in the way you do. Get hurt at work - bad luck, here is some money from the govt. Have car accident - can't sue the other party, as far as I am aware.

It may be different if health and safety rules aren't followed, but I think there'd have to be gross negligence, not some techincal breach, before anything could get through the courts.

Even if you can sue, you're not going to get damages, only costs, and only what the govt won't pay.

Cam you shouldn't have told Rodeo that...I think the idea of a person not getting cold hard cashola for an injury will make his head pop off like a 20 year old barbie doll...

I'm guessing the market for gaudy male jewelry and mens haircare products is significantly less over there as a result.:D

Well maybe, oh great smart one, you can point out how the arguments presented are neither "cohesive nor agrees with itself" (a double statement BTW). Your intelligence is showing.

On the other hand, since we're back to attacking the messenger (something which you won't find me doing unless in, I admit, retaliation), who cares what you think.

I tell my clients that if I do my job well, I will work myself out of a job as quickly and inexpensively as possible.

Advice prior to making employment-related decisions is absolutely critical. A 15 minute phone call can save an employer years of headaches and tens of thousands of dollars. So can detailed employee manuals and good record keeping, particularly in personnel files.

I looked it up, you have a true "no-fault" system. Which, believe it or not, is the same as our Workers Comp system (the one daddy wants to switch to a "fault" or negligence system, because even though he hates the negligence-based system, he lost in the no fault system, so why not switch over?)

Your "no fault" covers everything, workers claims, car accidents, products liability, medical malpractice. It has its benefits, but it also has substantial drawbacks.

daddy, who wants everything in America to be fault-based, is advocating a system the mirror opposite of New Zealand's, although he doesn't know it :)

About two/thirds of state legislatures are comprised of lawyers, the rest are mostly school teachers and others who routinely speak before audiences.

The fed is approximately the same.

You guys need to move!

Beacon Mutual Seeks 16% Workers Comp Price Drop in R.I.

By Andrew G. Simpson, Jr.
June 12, 2006

Beacon Mutual insurance Co., which writes workers compensation for about 90 percent of the businesses in Rhode Island, has filed for a 16 percent reduction in rates to cover its workers compensation loss costs.

A company spokesman said that if approved by state officials the reductions would begin in September and produce about $9.2 million in premium savings for its 14,500 customers.

The pricing move comes after last month's withdrawal by the insurer of a separate filing for a 27 percent loss cost cut and ends at least temporarily a stalemate between the company and state regulators.

The Department of Business Regulation, which must approve any filing, has been battling with Beacon Mutual over rate filings. DBR officials want Beacon Mutual to file along with the National Council on Compensation Insurers, which represents all other insurers in the state in rate proceedings.

But Beacon Mutual has balked at using NCCI advisory filings, arguing that it should be able to utilize its own loss costs.

Now the insurer, which has come under increasing scrutiny for its governance following public attacks by the Governor and the release of an outside audit that revealed questionable business practices, has decided to go along with the DBR. It has filed a loss cost multiplier and agreed to adopt the most recent NCCI approved advisory loss costs.

DBR officials have approved NCCI loss cost reductions of 4.2 percent and 20.2 percent within the past year. Beacon Mutual had declined to be a party in those NCCI rate proceedings but has now adopted them.

After adjusting these most recent NCCI filings for its own business and classifications, the result for Beacon is the16 percent reduction from current loss costs. If approved, the change would be the first for Beacon Mutual since March 1999.

"It was important to get a rate filing adopted this year," said Bill Fischer, spokesman for the company which has been operating under mostly new senior management since the April audit report was released.

Fischer maintained that the company management is "moving forward" in the wake of the controversies. He said the insurer now has "good relations" with DBR and is cooperating with a DBR audit of the firm.

In April, an audit released by a committee headed by former Governor Lincoln Almond said the company had given improper price breaks to favored policyholders at the expense of other customers.

Shortly after the audit became public, the board fired its CEO, Joseph Solomon, and its vice president for underwriting.

Gov. Don Carcieri has been waging a campaign in the press and courts to remove board members. Several have heeded the Governor's call to resign but two are fighting to retain their positions.

A statewide grand jury has subpoenaed company records and the DBR and state attorney general are reviewing the company's rate-setting practices, including whether certain brokers and clients received favorable treatement.

Indeed, I have a rep I consult and an employment attorney when things get or are about to get ugly. The main thing they have taught me is that it doesn't pay to be the nice guy. Do business at business and your charity outside that. In business, no good deed goes unpunished.

I'm learning that lesson now.

I appreciate you stating my position, but please be accurate. New Zealand does not (as Cam stated) charge the employer for workplace injuries) they are shared by the population. My main point this whole time has been that the employer should not have to shoulder the whole load for non negligent injuries and illnesses. It appears in New Zealand they do not, the exact opposite of our system.

Much as I advocated for our system, they appear to treat workplace injuries /illness from within their standard health care system.........what did I say? Oh yea, treat non negligent workplace injuries from within our standard health care system.

Fin.

Len I think everyone on the thread understands your position with the exception of Rodeo. Actually, I think he understands it, he's just being difficult for the sake of arguing.

In other words, transfer the cost out of the business and into the fund of stolen tax money?

No, I think I'll reject that. Workers need to be able to sue to collect damages as a result of owner negligence, of course we need to end both corporations and unions, but that's not going to happen soon. Employers need to be able to sue employees for negligent damage to equipment and materials.

Please more details.

I simply used "our current healthcare system" for expediency of my argument. Of course I prefer that to mean private health insurance, even employer provided.

My point was that Comp insurance is really anything but. My rep told me yesterday that I will be on the hook for roughly 75% of the $40k (would be a higher percentage but I get credits for small size and good record) which I will start paying next year and pay off in three. That's not insurance, that's a loan.

I don't mean by force; the corporation is a government created entity and reaction to that spawned labor unions.

Trade unions are another animal, in essense a corporation of skilled tradesment in order to keep prices high. While I wouldn't block those by government either, I'd not allow government protection of their group.

The same goes for MD's, RN's, and the other so-called skilled professionals that use government to restrict access.

I was accurate, but you are partially right, I stopped a bit short of your full position. Here it is in summary:

1. If employer and employee agree via an impartial arbitrator on whether there was "negligence," then there is no need for a case. Non negligent employers are off the hook, negligent employers pay, assuming the parties agree.

2. If they can't agree whether the employer was "negligent"(probably 99% of the time), the case gets dumped into the traditional fault-based liability system that you love so much (no word on what happens if its a fellow employee that is negligent, but what's a few details between friends?)

3. If the employer is found "not negligent" the taxpayers pay for the cost of care and lost wages for the injured employee and his family (with no increase in taxes, I'm sure, what's a few trillion additional deficit between friends?)

4. The cost of all of this is borne by "ABD"**


How's I do?



**Anybody but daddy

Don't encourage him, gaijindabe.

FastPat pasted an article about a private insurance company raking in dough and using questionable accounting. Yawn.

My state has effectively resisted "three way" bills that are dropped each year. The private insurance industry would LOVE to come in and skim the worker comp insurance market. Write policies in industries that don't make claims. Leave the taxpayer to underwrite the expensive industries. Yeah, baby.

Also in Washington State, workers cannot sue employers for workplace injuries. Employers have two options. They can self-insure, or they can pay into the state plan. Either way, they cannot be sued. Premiums area based on the industry, and the employer's actual experience rating (claims history).

Darned liberals.

Just to be clear, the guy that slips and falls off a Wal Mart ladder and breaks his neck while working for $6.50 and hour with no health insurance, he and his family are the state's problem, not Wal Mart's problem, or Wal Mart's insurer's problem?

If he racks up $1MM in medical care, the state pays. If he has 4 kids under age 10 but can't work for the rest of his life, the family goes on welfare.

That's your system?

If WalMart is not at fault then:

Whatever would have resulted from the same scerio excepting that he slipped and fell off a ladder at home.

What happens if he does this while at home with no insurance and/or no job? You are simply looking for someone besides the mobility impaired person to blame. It could not be his own fault, never.....

You just shifted trillions of dollars of cost from private industry to the government. I hope you are prepared to pay for it.

Oh right. You support Bush. We'll just borrow the money.

So you don't care about right and wrong, you just don't want to pay your share.

Keep in mind that money saved in private industry is money reinvested in the economy, your scenario is quite pessimistic

Nothing to do with it, buddy. If someone gets hurt making money for you, you pay for it via workers comp insurance. The responsibility is on the employer, and the taxpayers are not burdened with the cost of their production process.

Why do "conservatives" see "responsibility" only in one direction?

If I run a plant where every year, unavoidably 500 people are injured because of the dangerousness of the process, why am I not responsible for the predictable outcome of my economic activity? Why are the taxpayers asked to shoulder that burden? Where's my responsibility?

Quite the opposite. I care deeply. And it's "right" to take care of people who are injured while working for your economic enterprise.

Tripping over a ladder or falling into a machine does not make someone "wrong." It means they got hurt making money for you, and the "right" thing to do is to take responsibility for the consequences of your economic activity, not pass it along to the population as a whole.

No, they got hurt making money for themselves, they are not my slaves. And tthe employee is not being punished, no one said they did anything wrong. All that's nbeing said is that the employer certainly did nothing wrong.
If your secretary bumps her head on the underside of your desk causing her an anurism and lifelong disability, will you take care of her and her family for the rest of their lives?

BTW, giving/providing someone with a job is a good and honorable thing. It is not something you should feel guilty about.

You bet I will, through my insurance carrier. It's a cost of doing business.

And here's the good news. Because I accept inevitable injuries as a cost of doing business, and insure against it, you will never have to pay for my secretary's medical care.

How will your insurance carrier provide for her family? Me thinks you'll need to pick that tab up yourself. Her husband thanks you BTW:D

You've resorted to your trademark wisecracking. This is an important discussion.

You think the inevitable cost of some guy falling into a dangerous machine should be "hidden" in the tax base, to be borne by all. I think if I make my living hiring people to do dangerous work, where unavoidably a percentage of them will get hurt, that is a cost of business and MY responsibility, not yours.

It is about responsibility, but the kind Repubs don't like to talk about.

Just an observation:

Giving or providing a job IS an noble thing, but it is not done for altruistic reasons. It helps the bottom line.

Protection should be available for truly accidental/job related disabilities. The problem is separating the wheat from the chaff.

I would no more ask the public to pay for my broken employees than I would my broken machinery, or my broken windows. Its not MY FAULT the machine broke, why should I pay for it? Let's let daddy and the rest of the pubic pay. I did "nothing wrong," the machine just broke.

Bull. I'm responsible for my costs of production, not the taxpayers. And that inculdes things that go wrong, whether mechanical or human.