From my guy on workers comp....
PS. My neighbor has a small roofing business he has run since high school. in 2 1/2 yrs his liability has gone from 5K to 30K, W/C he pays $1 rate for $1 wages. He's now working without and can't bid jobs bigger than 1 home. This combined with cost of plywood and other materials is causing him to close his business soon.
He's a damned good roofer, he did mine.
D
FLASH REPORT: YES, THERE WILL BE A REFORM BILL
While the news may not be official, drafts of the 250 page workers'
comp reform have begun to circulate among the workers' comp
cognoscenti in the Capitol. Staffers worked late into the night
last night drafting and redrafting the legislation as the deals
changed. There are serious drafting problems, clerical errors and
errors of intent as it stands as of 8 a.m. this morning.
There is a Conference Committee meeting scheduled for this morning
at 11, however the bill may not be in good enough form for the
meeting to come off. The current plan is to hold the conference
committee vote, and then take the bill right onto the floor of both
houses to pass it. Whether this happens today, tomorrow or Friday
there will be votes on the floors of both houses no later than
Friday.
There will be no time for the public, special interests, the media
or anyone else to vette the issues and changes to the system.
Whether this makes an unworkable and complicated system worse or
better won't be known until after it is passed.
So what we have - what the people are getting - is legislation
written in secret, with all the deals made in secret, and one that
when it does see the light of day will only be in public for a few
hours before it passes. If smoking were allowed in the Capitol
this legislation is the classic smoked filled room deal bill, only
without the lobbyists.
What effect it will have on the cost drivers remains to be seen, but
one thing is sure, the more pages in the bill the more places for
attorneys to creatively invent new ways to interpret the law and
increase costs.
What we do know is that the Democrats in caucus last night gave up
rate regulation in trade for no initiative.
We also know that State Fund's hope of being removed from risk based
capital requirements is not in this bill and probably won't be
considered until later in the session, after their KMPG audit is
released. Apparently, the Governor's staff abrogated their duty and
decided to leave State Fund under Commissioner Garamendi's control,
or at least to let the trial court decide what to do about it, while
they figure out what to do next.
Sources near the negotiations tell the Executive that the "report"
issued by Standard & Poor's, containing no facts or figures apparently
had the desired effect and stopped both rate regulation and the
removal of State Fund from RBC dead in the water.
The effect the secret deal will have on the marketplace both in terms
of rates, cost drivers and new capital entering the market will not
be known for as long as five years, according to one carrier president,
"but," he said "the politicians will certainly trumpet their deeds as
the cure all for California's problems." If the cost cannot be
quantified by the carriers, they can't and won't be reflected in the
rates.
The State will see a workers' comp reform bill any minute, but whether
it will work or make matters worse no one will know for some time. |
