Too Big To Pay For: Workers' Compensation's Struggle To Cover Medical Care

Today's post was shared by WorkCompCentral and comes from daviddepaolo.blogspot.com. It highlights the growing concerns about infectious disease and burden it adds to an incredibly bogged down workers' compensation program. Ironically a recent report today in the NEJM (advanced publication) concerning a potential, but very expensive cure for Hep C (Therapy for Hepatitis C — The Costs of Success, Jay H. Hoofnagle, M.D., and Averell H. Sherker, M.D., April 12, 2014DOI: 10.1056/NEJMe1401508), mirrors this issue on an ever increasing trend. The question continues to arise as to whether the delivery of medical care is just too big and complicated of an issue for the aged workers' compensation system to handle any longer. JL Gelman

Political machinations create the complexity we know as workers' compensation law. California is the prime example, with several bills moving around the legislature that bestow special treatment to certain classes of workers. One bill, Assembly Bill 1035 by House Speaker John A. Pérez, D-Los Angeles, would allow dependents to file claims for deaths caused by cancer, tuberculosis, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections and other bloodborne infectious diseases up to 420 weeks from the date the disease is diagnosed. Similar bills in the past had made it through the legislature but Gov. Jerry Brown had vetoed them ostensibly because he was waiting for reports from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the California Commission on Health Safety and Workers' Compensation. AB 1373, which passed in 2013 and AB 2451, which passed in 2012 differed in that both extended the limitations period to 480 weeks. And the new bill includes a sunset provision that would allow the governor and Legislature to revisit the appropriateness of the new time frame in five years. Supporters say AB 1035 is necessary because with advances in medical science, safety officers who develop cancer and other diseases through their employment are living longer. The emotional appeal is that these brave public servants fight for their lives, only to succumb to the disease after the death benefits limitation period expires so dependents can not collect the benefits. Of...

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Even Small Medical Advances Can Mean Big Jumps in Bills

Apr 07, 2014

CATHERINE HAYLEY, whose diabetes was diagnosed when she was 9, describing the digital insulin pump that helps keep her alive." data-mediaviewer-credit="Luke Sharrett for The New York Times" ...

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Workers' Compensation: Medical Costs Still Treading Upward

Sep 19, 2013

Medical Costs Still Treading Upward. The cost of medical treatment in workers' compensation claims, despite a resumed trend in lower claims, is continuing to increase. View complete report: NCCI Workers Compensation ...

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Workers' Compensation: Why does health care cost so ...

Nov 20, 2013

A major component of the Workers' Compensation benefits system is now the cost of medical care. Workers' Compensation insurance is not alone in experiencing this phenomena. Soaring medical costs pervades the entire ...

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Compensation Jeopardy: Romney and Medical Costs

Nov 01, 2012

Planned changes by Mitt Romney to Medicare and Medicaid will have a dire effect on the regulations of the future cost of workers' compensation medical treatment. Proposed changes to the Federal program will indirectly ...

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Dreams dashed in fatal college tour bus crash

Today's post was shared by Trucker Lawyers and comes from bigstory.ap.org and highlights the need for more regulation and enforcement of transportation safety. If products are continued to be manufactured, operated, and maintained in an unsafe manner tragedies in the workplace will continue. Accidents just don't happen and hopefully can be avoided. 

Rescuers tend to walking wounded after a fiery crash involving several vehicles, Thursday, April 10, 2014, just north of Orland, Calif., that left at least nine dead. Authorities said it is not yet clear what caused the crash but that it involved a tour bus, a FedEx truck and a Nissan Altima. (AP Photo/The Chico Enterprise-Record, Dan Reidel)   Map locates Orland, Calif., where three vehicles crashed and killed at least nine; 6c x 2 inches; 295.2 mm x 50 mm;   Massive flames are seen devouring both vehicles just after the crash, and clouds of smoke billowed into the sky Thursday April 10, 2014 until firefighters had quenched the fire, leaving behind scorched black hulks of metal. The FedEx tractor-trailer crossed a grassy freeway median in Northern California and slammed into the bus carrying high school students on a visit to a college. At least nine were killed in the fiery crash, authorities said. (AP Photo/Jeremy Lockett)   Emergency crews look over wreckage from a crash between a semi and a tour bus on Thursday, April 10, 2014, on Interstate 5 near Orland, Calif. Authorities said it is not yet clear what caused the crash but that it involved a tour bus, a FedEx truck and a Nissan Altima. At least Nine people were killed Thursday and dozens injured in the fiery crash between a FedEx delivery truck and a charter bus carrying high school students on a visit to a Northern California college, authorities said. (AP...

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Workers' Compensation: FMCSA Orders Immediate Shut ...

Apr 08, 2014

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has ordered Scapadas Magicas LLC, a passenger carrier operating in the United States, to immediately cease ...

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Workers' Compensation: Transportation Accidents: Data ...

Jul 22, 2013

New technology in the coming years maybe become critical evidence in determining the casual relationship of transportation accidents as well as whether the employee deviated from the employment at the time of the event.

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Workers' Compensation: Transportation Injuries Continue to ...

Sep 27, 2012

Workplace injuries involving transportation continue to be major contributing factors to fatalities in the United States. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported preliminary data for 2011 reflecting that transportation ...

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Workers' Compensation: FMCSA Orders DND International ...

Apr 06, 2014

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has ordered DND International, Inc., USDOT No. 1434005, to immediately shut down after declaring the ...

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Senate Republicans Block Bill on Equal Pay

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

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked legislation meant to close the pay gap between men and women, framing an election-year fight between the parties over whose policies are friendlier to women. The bill was an attempt by Democrats to press what they see as their electoral advantage among women in the coming midterm elections, but they fell short of the 60 votes they needed to prevent a filibuster and advance the legislation. “For reasons known only to them, Senate Republicans don’t seem to be interested in closing wage gaps for working women,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said in a floor speech. Republican lawmakers have said that given existing anti-discrimination laws, the legislation is redundant and is a transparent attempt by Democrats to distract from President Obama’s much-criticized health care law. Supporters of the bill, called the Paycheck Fairness Act, say it would bring transparency to worker pay by making it illegal for employers to penalize employees who discuss their salaries and by requiring the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to collect pay information from employers. Mr. Obama signed executive measures on Tuesday that imposed similar requirements on government contractors. Republican leaders assailed Democrats’ attempt to paint them as unsympathetic to women in the work force. The Senate Republican Conference on Wednesday called the pay equity legislation “the latest...

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Of Course Student-Athletes Are University Employees

Student athletes are organizing as employees. Will this change of status mandate much needed workers' compensation insurance coverage? Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.theatlantic.com

Objectors to the NLRB's ruling that student-athletes can unionize are glossing over the fact that student-athletes meet all the criteria to be considered employees of their schools. Are college athletes university employees? It’s a question that has gripped the sports world since January, when a group of Northwestern University football players petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to form a union. The debate has only intensified since March 26, when a regional director in Chicago surprised many by granting the players’ petition. The backbone of regional director Peter Sung Ohr’s 24-page ruling that the players are employees and thus have the right to form a union was the exhaustive description of the responsibilities and time-consuming demands of Northwestern football players. The judge said the evidence put forth by the team members, led by former quarterback Kain Colter and the College Athletes Players Association, showed that football “student-athletes” at Northwestern spend 40 to 50 hours a week on football-related activities for the duration of the regular season and bowl season, and have a virtual year-round commitment to the program. Thus, they are employees under the National Labor Relations Act, Ohr concluded. “In its detailed presentation of the life of a Northwestern football player and in its analysis of the applicable law, Ohr's opinion clearly anticipates the appeal,” said ESPN’s Lester Munson....

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Workers' Compensation: Union says other college teams in ...

Apr 10, 2014

A member of Wisconsin's Final Four basketball team said he participated in weekly conference calls in recent months with the union and Ramogi Huma, head of the National College Players Association, and other players.

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College Football Players Get Approval to Unionize

Mar 30, 2014

The ruling, which Northwestern immediately said it would appeal, has the potential to upend big-time college sports by reversing the NCAA's longtime stance that athletes are students first and athletes second. As such, they ...

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Of Course Student-Athletes Are University Employees

Apr 10, 2014

Are college athletes university employees? It's a question that has gripped the sports world since January, when a group of Northwestern University football players petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to form a ...

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Northwestern quarterback says 'confident' of unionization vote

Apr 06, 2014

The two met earlier in the week with congressional lawmakers to talk about the Northwestern players' novel effort to form what could be the first labor union for U.S. college athletes. "The hard part is over," Colter said of the ...

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Union says other college teams in play after decision involving Northwestern football team

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.jacksonsun.com

Tweet Players from other universities have expressed interest in forming unions in the wake of the landmark decision last week involving the Northwestern football team, a union organizer said Friday. Tim Waters of the United Steelworkers would not disclose the players or their schools, saying it was too early to reveal who they are. But he said they reached out following the decision last week by a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board declaring Northwestern's football players have the right to form a union. "We're not giving out who it is or who they are, but the answer is yes," said Waters. "There's a lot of excitement out there. We've been contacted by a number of players." A member of Wisconsin's Final Four basketball team said he participated in weekly conference calls in recent months with the union and Ramogi Huma, head of the National College Players Association, and other players. The NCPA and the steelworkers are working together on the union push, with the NCAA, Big Ten Conference and Northwestern opposing the move. "I don't know exactly how many there were. But on average on a weekly call there were probably 10 or 20, at least," said Zach Bohannon, a reserve on the team. "So it was definitely a unique experience just hearing the concerns that players all over the country had, and then just voicing my opinion." Northwestern players will vote April 25 on whether to become the first college athletes...

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UConn guard on unions: I go to bed 'starving'

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.cnn.com

(CNN) -- He's one of the best basketball players in the country, and he led his team to victory in Monday night's NCAA championship game. But the University of Connecticut's Shabazz Napier recently told reporters he sometimes goes to bed "starving" because he can't afford food, despite that UConn's student-athlete guidelines include provisions for meal plans. The remark got the attention of state lawmakers in Connecticut, who are now exploring legislative ways to allow athletes at UConn, a state institution, to unionize -- much like athletes are attempting at Northwestern University. Rep. Matthew Lesser said he and other state lawmakers are considering legislation. Unlike at Northwestern, a private institution governed by the National Labor Relations Board, Connecticut law governs whether employees at a public institution can unionize. "He says he's going to bed hungry at a time when millions of dollars are being made off of him. It's obscene," Lesser said. "This isn't a Connecticut problem. This is an NCAA problem, and I want to make sure we're putting pressure on them to treat athletes well." Napier recently called the Northwestern union ruling "kind of great" and said that although he appreciates his basketball scholarship, it doesn't cover all of his expenses. "I don't feel student-athletes should get hundreds of thousands of dollars, but like I said, there are hungry nights that I go to bed and I'm starving," he said. Asked...

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Toyota Recalls 6.4 Million Vehicles, Raising New Questions About Its Quality Controls

Today's post was shared by FairWarning and comes from www.fairwarning.org

Five defects spur world’s No. 1 automaker to launch massive recall. The action announced today by Toyota Motor Corp. involves nearly 6.4 million vehicles worldwide and 27 models, including the RAV4, Corolla, Yaris, Matrix and Highlander. The recalls were prompted by defects with seat rails, cables connected to air bags, engine starters, steering column brackets and windshield-wiper motors. Engine-starter defects led two vehicles in Japan to catch fire, but Toyota said it wasn’t aware of any crashes, injuries or fatalities caused by the problems. The most widespread problem is with the spiral cable assembly attached to air bags, an issue affecting 3.5 million vehicles. The recalls are a fresh blow to Toyota’s reputation for quality, and follow the company’s agreement last month to pay a $1.2 billion criminal penalty to settle a U.S. investigation. The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg GM gets slapped with a $7,000-a-day fine — and a warning about possible Justice Department action. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told General Motors in a letter that it was imposing the fine, retroactive to April 3, because the company still hasn’t provided enough answers about its ignition switch recall. NHTSA also warned that it could refer the case to the Justice Department as early as today because of GM’s “failure to fully respond” to the agency’s 107 questions about...

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