Attorney Says Insurance Company Political Lobbying Undermining Workers Com

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/4279

Attorney Says Insurance Company Political Lobbying Undermining Workers Comp

By Doug Cunningham

An attorney who wrote a report calling the workers compensation system in the U.S. “a colossal failure” says what was intended to be a no-fault system guaranteeing benefits workers hurt on the job has turned into an adversarial system that often denies workers the benefits they deserve. Amy Widman of the Center for Justice and Democracy says workers are often at the mercy of a system that denies them access to court appeals.

: “If you’re injured at work, you get the benefits. You’re taken out of the civil justice system, you don’t have to go to court. But in exchange for that you get the benefits. But now, workers don’t get the benefits and they don’t have rights to go to court. So it’s kind of a lose-lose situation.

Widman says insurance companies are profiting from the chipping away of workers comp benefits. And what’s causing the “chipping away” of the benefits?

: “It’s largely a political and lobbying influence from insurance companies.”

Widman says only about one percent of workers who file for workers comp benefits defraud the system while corporate workers comp fraud, she says, is a far bigger problem.