The tension between public pension systems and workers' compensation programs was highlighted in a recent investigative report by the NJ State Comptroller. The report raises additional critical issues common to other state and national collateral social insurance programs challenged by current fiscal limitations.
Showing posts with label Cost-shifting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cost-shifting. Show all posts
Sunday, February 7, 2021
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Too Much Temptation To Do the Wrong Thing
The problem with workers' compensation being funded and managed by private interests is that there is simply too much temptation to do the wrong things for the wrong reasons - usually those reasons involve profiting at the expense of everyone else.
And so it seems in New York where an associate attorney in the State Workers' Compensation Board General Counsel's Office said in an affidavit filed in New York Supreme Court Friday that improper cost-shifting by the state's workers' compensation carriers has caused the liabilities of the state's Reopened Case Fund to "spiral exponentially," of course at the expense of employers. After the historical reform of New York's system by then Gov. Eliot Spitzer, that imposed the state's first duration caps on permanent partial disability benefits, carriers began settling the indemnity portion of claims, leaving medical treatment open. Three years after the indemnity payments run out, carriers can then file claims with the fund providing medical evidence that the workers' condition has changed, thereby shifting the cost of medical care for injured workers over to the Fund. The lawsuit in which the affidavit was filed was initiated by Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. and 19 of its sister insurers to block a section of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's 2013-2014 budget the close the fund on Jan. 1, 2014. Coumo made closing the fund part of the "Business Relief Act" included in his $141.3 billion budget and predicted that closing the fund will save New York... |
Monday, April 4, 2011
The Republican Plan: Just End Medicare
This week, the Republicans will offer a proposal that ultimately would end Medicare involvement. The plain is simply end Medicare. The proposal outlined is outlined in the Wall Street Journal today.
"The plan would essentially end Medicare, which now pays most of the health-care bills for 48 million elderly and disabled Americans, as a program that directly pays those bills. Mr. Ryan and other conservatives say this is necessary because of the program's soaring costs. Medicare cost $396.5 billion in 2010 and is projected to rise to $502.8 billion in 2016. At that pace, spending on the program would have doubled between 2002 and 2016."
Converting the program for coverage to the poor only would still not end the plans' involvement in workers' compensation and in fact may only increase it. The dichotomy between rich and poor will increase. The numbers of uninsured are growing as well as the working elderly.
It is anticipated that Medicare premium costs will continue to increase under the present plan and wealthy Americans will opt-out. This proposal will merely mean a universal opt-out plan leaving the Federal program strapped for cash. The premium base needs to be increased rather than diminished.
As Peter Rousmaniere, a noted workers' compensation commentator, recently observed, the workers' compensation program has "leaks in the system." Occupational disease claims will continue to be denied at increasing rates, and the cost shifting will merely be perpetuated from workers compensation to the taxpayers. Just ending Medicare will not solve the problems with the Workers' Compensation medical delivery system.
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