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Opinion: Good Riddance to Lawyers and "Labor Fat-Cats"

May 2, 2005
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
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And just when even a high-powered defense attorney makes huge waves around the state complaining about the unfairness of the payments now made to truly injured workers under the new system (see these 2 articles from WorkInjury.com, article 1 and article 2), we now have a political commentator, in a major news publication, telling us what a raving success the new laws are. Who do we believe?

Jill Stewart writes in the San Francisco Chronicle that SB 899 "is a big success. Rates are plunging, insurance companies who fled corrupt California are back and severely injured workers receive more money while the barely injured get less. How incredibly sensible."

She points to the fact that one-quarter of the private investigators she's recently heard from had been making their money investigating workers' comp. fraud and that the new laws are fixing all that by ridding us of the "tens of thousands of cheaters, greedy doctors and greedy lawyers (who bled) the system dry."

Which begs the question: Were the seriously injured workers who testified at last week's Senate hearing about their drop in benefits lying? Or just frauds?

This is an amazing commentary that shows, when it comes to workers' comp. reform, just how far apart opposing views really are... and how difficult future compromise may be.

[Although we can't help but wonder whether Ms. Stewart's description of severely injured workers as "the big winners" would remain the same if she were seriously injured at work and had to rely on the new benefits -- though we're guessing, as an independent contractor, she's got much better private coverage.]

To read the full copyrighted story from the news source credited at the top of this article, please click here.*

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