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Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Merit-Based Workers Compensation: The Romney-Gingrich Plan

The Republican presidential primary battle has inadequately defined the debate guidelines for the future of workers' compensation in the US. While both leading Republican candidates are throwing darts at each other on many points, the basic philosophy of both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich is to extinguish the so-called "entitlement society." They claim Barack Obama, "the food stamp president," has accelerated the problem. 


Of course, missing from the debate is that fact that the US has changed, in tandem, with the rest of the world. The nation's manufacturing sector left the auditorium, and with it went jobs and premiums for supporting a viable workers' compensation system. What it left was a legacy of industrial illness and disease that is fatally affecting the nation's medical delivery system and burdening the taxpayers of our nation.


If the political debate is to become credible, the medical treatment delivery system must be addressed rather than just throwing around meaningless political rhetoric. While the safety net is slowing deteriorating, there remains still an opportunity to re-design and advance a credible workers' compensation system. If the debate continues along the present path, the opportunity will be lost and the nation will loose.


See The Republican Myth Of Obama’s “Entitlement Society” By Robert Reich
"But they have cause and effect backwards. The reason for the rise in food stamps, unemployment insurance, and other safety-net programs is Americans got clobbered in 2008 with the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. They and their families have needed whatever helping hands they could get."
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For over 3 decades the Law Offices of Jon L. Gelman  1.973.696.7900  jon@gelmans.com have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.