Workers' Compensation

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Throw The Book At 'Em

There seems to be no limit in the amount of fraudulent conduct that transpires within the workers' compensation system. If employer fraud is not enough, the system is constantly undergoing abuse from business interests, ie. medical provo\iders, who abuse the system. The Federal Governments role in enforcement is ever increasing and expansion is trending wider. The gobal expanssion nationally of a universal program for monitoring and enforcement of medical fraud is encouraging. Today's post is shared from David DePaolo http://daviddepaolo.blogspot.com/

It's a shame that hundreds, if not thousands, of injured workers underwent unnecessary spinal fusion surgeries and must live with the debilitating aftermath of significant disability because of people whose greed overrides the well being of fellow humans.

I had learned about Michael Drobot and Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, and their co-conspirators, preying on workers' compensation patients some time ago.

On Friday though, Federal prosecutors announced that Michael D. Drobot faces up to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to paying kickbacks in a $500 million fraud scheme relating to spinal fusions and admitted to bribing state Sen. Ron Calderon to delay legislation to repeal the separate reimbursement for spinal hardware.

Calderon, D-Montebello, was indicted one day earlier on 24 charges, including bribery, money laundering, wire fraud and filing a false tax return. His brother, former...

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Read more about "Federalization of Workers' Compensation"

Path to Federalization: A National Workers Compensation System

Jul 05, 2012

United States Supreme Court has taken a giant leap forward to facilitate the Federalization of the entire nation's workers' compensation system. By it's recent decision, upholding the mandate for insurance care under the ...

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The World Trade Center Health Program Expands The Path to

Dec 23, 2010

Yesterday the US Congress passed and sent to the President, The World Trade Center Health Program, marking yet another advance on the path to federalize the nation's workers' compensation program. The Federally ...

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Designing the New Federal Workers Compensation Program

Jul 05, 2010

The trend toward Federalization of workers' compensation benefits took a giant step forward by recent Presidential action creating the British Petroleum Oil Compensation Fund. While the details remain vague, the broad and ...

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National Experts Call Workers Compensation System Irrational and

Jun 14, 2012

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Monday, February 24, 2014

Freeing Workers From the Insurance Trap

Removing major medical coverage from a condition of employment will ultimately improve working condition. Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com

The Congressional Budget Office estimated on Tuesday that the Affordable Care Act will reduce the number of full-time workers by 2.5 million over the next decade. That is mostly a good thing, a liberating result of the law. Of course, Republicans immediately tried to brand the findings as “devastating” and stark evidence of President Obama’s health care reform as a failure and a job killer. It is no such thing.

The report estimated that — thanks to an increase in insurance coverage under the act and the availability of subsidies to help pay the premiums — many workers who felt obliged to stay in a job that provided health benefits would now be able to leave those jobs or choose to work fewer hours than they otherwise would have. In other words, the report is about the choices workers can make when they are no longer tethered to an employer because of health benefits. The cumulative effect on the labor supply is the equivalent of 2.5 million fewer full-time workers by 2024.

Some workers may have had a pre-existing condition and will now be able to leave work because insurers must accept all applicants without regard to health status and charge premiums unrelated to health status. Some may have felt they needed to keep working to pay for health insurance, but now new government subsidies will help pay premiums, making it more possible for them to leave their jobs.

The report clearly stated that health reform would not produce an increase in...

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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). For over 4 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.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

F.D.A. Orders 4 Bidi Cigarette Brands Removed From Shelves

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday ordered four tobacco products removed from the market, the first time the agency has done so since being given the legal authority in 2009.

“It’s a big deal,” said Matthew L. Myers, the president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an advocacy group. “This is first time the F.D.A. has ever ordered a product to be removed from the market for broad public health concerns.”

“It’s also significant that they did so because the manufacturer was unable or unwilling to provide sufficient evidence that the product didn’t raise new or different concerns for public health,” he added.

Since June 2013, the F.D.A. has rejected 13 new tobacco products because agency scientists believed they posed health risks above and beyond comparable products already on the market.

Agency officials said that four cigarette brands made by Jash International may no longer be domestically sold, distributed or imported. They are Sutra Bidis Red, Sutra Bidis Menthol, Sutra Bidis Red Cone and Sutra Bidis Menthol Cone. In 30 days, the F.D.A. will begin seizing any goods that remain on shelves.

The unconventional cigarettes are bidis — thin, hand-rolled cigarettes stuffed with tobacco, wrapped in leaves from a tendu tree and sometimes tied with a colorful string. Popular in India, bidis are not widely smoked here, but their novelty appeals to some adolescents.

In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and...

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Read more about "Smoking and Workers' Compensation:"

Workers' Compensation: The 50-year war on smoking

Jan 12, 2014

The 1964 U.S. Surgeon General's report on smoking — the first official acknowledgment by the federal government that smoking kills — was an extraordinarily progressive document for its time. It swiftly led to a federal law that ...

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Workers' Compensation: Smoking Is Worse Than You Imagined

Jan 20, 2014

Despite the many gains in reducing risks over the past half-century, researchers keep finding new and insidious ways in which smoking is harming the smokers themselves and nonsmokers who breathe in toxic fumes.

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Workers' Compensation: Anti-Smoking Battle Moves Outdoors

Aug 14, 2013

City parks, public beaches, college campuses and other outdoor venues across the country are putting up signs telling smokers they can't light up. Outdoor smoking bans have nearly doubled in the last five years, with the tally ...

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Workers' Compensation: Are Smokers Really the ACA's Biggest ...

Dec 03, 2013

Smoking is a major pre-existing condition in workers' compensation claims and it is also a multiplier for medical conditions that result in malignancies. Penalizing smokers through the ACA (Affordable Care Act) will also have ...

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2 seriously injured after falling from scaffolding

Today's post was shared by CAAA and comes from www.mercurynews.com

SAN FRANCISCO—San Francisco fire officials say two workers are suffering from potentially life threatening injuries after falling from scaffolding at a skyscraper under construction.

Fire spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge says the workers were installing scaffolding when it collapsed, sending one worker falling 40 feet and another 30 feet shortly after 2 p.m. Thursday at the 27-story office building under construction in the city's South of Market neighborhood.

Talmadge says parts of the scaffolding fell on the workers as firefighters worked to remove the workers from some rubble. The workers were taken to San Francisco General Hospital with life threatening injuries.

She did not know the extent of their injuries. Their names have not been released.

Talmadge says the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health will investigate the incident.

The workers are from Webcor Builders in San Francisco, said Len Veprone, a senior vice president. He confirmed that the workers were at the hospital, but he did not disclose their conditions. He said the builders are the Kilroy Realty Corp. and that the site has been under construction since April.

A telephone message left with OSHA officials was not immediately returned.

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Read more about "Scaffolding Accidents and Workers' Compensation"

2 seriously injured after falling from scaffolding - Workers ...

Feb 23, 2014

Fire spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge says the workers were installing scaffolding when it collapsed, sending one worker falling 40 feet and another 30 feet shortly after 2 p.m. Thursday at the 27-story office building under ...

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Workers' Compensation: Stucco Contractor in NJ Receives OSHA ...

Mar 11, 2013

The repeat violations, with a $67,760 penalty, include an unsecured scaffold missing cross braces, exposing workers to scaffold collapse and failing to fully plank and provide guardrails or other means of fall protection on ...

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Workers' Compensation: OSHA proposes more than $460,000 in ...

Dec 04, 2013

Painting & Decorating Inc., a Ronkonkoma painting and stucco contractor with a long history of fall protection and scaffold safety violations, now faces an additional $460,350 in fines from the U.S. Department of Labor's ...

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Workers' Compensation: Repeated Fall Injuries Results in OSHA ...

Jan 04, 2013

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Beno Stucco Systems of Rochelle Park with six safety violations – including five repeat – involving fall and scaffolding hazards while ...

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Detroit Files Financial Restructuring Plan

Today's post was shared by WSJ Law Blog and comes from blogs.wsj.com

DETROIT—The city of Detroit submitted its financial restructuring plan to federal court Friday, a move likely to set off a new round of jockeying among creditors asked to take a haircut in the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy.

The plan seeks to restructure an estimated $18 billion in long-term obligations by paying secured creditors in full, paying pension funds a reduced amount, and giving other unsecured creditors just a fraction—about 20 cents on the dollar—of the outstanding debt the city still owes.

“There is still much work in front of all of us to continue the recovery from a decadeslong downward spiral,” Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr said in a statement Friday. “We must move swiftly to emerge from bankruptcy so that the financial distress harming the City can end.”

As part of the plan, city officials said they would set aside $1.5 billion over 10 years for capital improvements, blight removal, and equipment and technology upgrades to make the city safer, cleaner and more efficient. Up to $500 million of that will be dedicated to blight removal over the next five years, officials said. Read the full WSJ story here.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who steered the city into a bankruptcy filing in July, called on many city creditors who have been reluctant to settle to reconsider.

“Let’s use this plan as a call to action for a voluntary settlement as part of the mediation process to resolve the...

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Read more about "Bankruptcy and Workers' Compensation"

Workers' Compensation: Detroit $165 million bankruptcy settlement ...

Jan 18, 2014

Public entity bankruptcies have placed the stability of workers' compensation and other benefits into a grey area. As the Detroit bankruptcy resolution continues to stumble the consistency necessary for critical benefit delivery ...

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Compensation Nuclear Option: Detroit officially enters bankruptcy

Dec 03, 2013

The "nuclear option" for a workers' compensation claim is a public entity bankruptcy and Detroit got the Court's approval to go forward with the legal maneuver. Over the course of the last 3 decades, bankruptcy has become a ...

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Workers' Compensation: Detroit's Bankruptcy Signals a Failure in ...

Jul 19, 2013

The bankruptcy of the city of Detroit reflects not only an economic and social tragedy for America, but it also marks a failure of basic disability and compensation programs for the US workers. It is a sentinel event marking the ...

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Rail Company Involved in Quebec Explosion Files for Bankruptcy

Aug 13, 2013

The company — Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in United States and Canadian courts, citing debts to more than 200 creditors after the July disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec.

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Saturday, February 22, 2014

The Clear Benefits of a Higher Wage

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from mobile.nytimes.com

Republicans sputtered with outrage when the Congressional Budget Office said that immigration reform would lower the deficit, strengthen Social Security and speed up economic growth. They called for the office to be abolished when it dared to point out that tax cuts raise the deficit or when it highlighted the benefits of health care reform. But now that the budget office has predicted (and exaggerated) the possibility that an increase in the minimum wage might result in a loss of jobs, Republicans think it’s gospel.

“This report confirms what we’ve long known,” said a spokesman for the House speaker, John Boehner. “While helping some, mandating higher wages has real costs, including fewer people working.”

What Republicans fail to mention is that Tuesday’s report from the budget office, a federal nonpartisan agency, was almost entirely positive about the benefits of raising the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016, as President Obama and Congressional Democrats have proposed.

More than 16 million low-wage workers, now making as little as $7.25 an hour, would directly benefit from the increase, the report said. Another eight million workers making slightly more than the minimum would probably also get raises, because of the upward “ripple effect” of an increase. That would add $31 billion to the paychecks of families ranging from poverty level to the middle class, significantly increasing their spending power and raising the...

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Read more about "Minimum Wage and Workers' Compensation:"

Workers' Compensation: The Case for a Higher Minimum Wage

Feb 12, 2014

The political posturing over raising the minimum wage sometimes obscures the huge and growing number of low-wage workers it would affect. An estimated 27.8 million people would earn more money under the Democratic ...

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Workers' Compensation: Obama to Raise Minimum Wage for ...

Jan 29, 2014

President Barack Obama plans to act unilaterally to raise the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors, a move that asserts his executive powers before his State of the Union address in which he will press ...

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Workers' Compensation: The Clear Benefits of a Higher Wage

Feb 22, 2014

But now that the budget office has predicted (and exaggerated) the possibility that an increase in the minimum wage might result in a loss of jobs, Republicans think it's gospel. “This report confirms what we've long known,” ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Democrats say minimum-wage battles to help 2014 turnout

Nov 17, 2013

"The refusal to increase the minimum wage is just one of the ways House Republicans have inflicted harm on the economy and hurt people's pocketbooks," said New York Rep. Steve Israel, who chairs the Democratic ...

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Parallels Seen in Two Jet Crashes in 2013

WASHINGTON — The crew of a U.P.S. cargo jet that crashed on approach to Birmingham, Ala., last August had planned to land by using a method that was rare for them, following a computer-generated path to give vertical guidance, according to testimony given Thursday at a National Transportation Safety Board hearing. But the crew changed its strategy in the last minutes because the onboard computer did not perform as they had planned, investigators said.

At the hearing, strong parallels emerged to the crash of an Asiana passenger plane at San Francisco International Airport five weeks earlier: heavy pilot reliance on automation, possible failure to anticipate its limits, not enough experience landing without a full instrument system, and failure to keep track of key parameters. In the Asiana crash, which killed three people and destroyed a Boeing 777, the issue was airspeed; in the Birmingham crash, of an Airbus A300, it was altitude. The safety board is also looking into fatigue in the Birmingham crash, which came shortly before 5 a.m. and killed both people on board.

The National Transportation Safety Board is holding hearings into the Aug. 14 crash of a U.P.S. cargo jet in Birmingham, Ala. Hal Yeager/Associated Press

According to documents released by the safety board, the captain in the Birmingham crash, Cerea Beal, 58, had told co-workers that the schedule was very hard. “I can’t do this until I retire because it’s killing me,” he was...

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Copyright

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Throw The Book At 'Em

Monday, February 24, 2014

Freeing Workers From the Insurance Trap

Sunday, February 23, 2014

F.D.A. Orders 4 Bidi Cigarette Brands Removed From Shelves

2 seriously injured after falling from scaffolding

Detroit Files Financial Restructuring Plan

Saturday, February 22, 2014

The Clear Benefits of a Higher Wage

Parallels Seen in Two Jet Crashes in 2013

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