SACRAMENTO — Ever since California overhauled its troubled workers' compensation insurance system in 2004, injured workers have complained that they were the big losers. That may be about to improve.
As part of the changes, disability payments were slashed by at least 50%, workers lost the right to choose their own physician and insurance adjusters often delayed and denied requests for medical treatments.
While injured employees saw benefits slip away, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's overhaul proved a boon for employers and insurers.
Premiums for legally required workers' comp coverage plummeted by 60%, while insurance company profits soared to their highest levels in three decades.
For the last two years, the Legislature passed bills to increase benefits for workers, and each year the governor vetoed the bill. But this year it appears that a modest increase in benefits for disabled workers is in the works.
The governor, backed with research compiled by his workers' compensation experts, may be ready to give disabled workers an increase in benefits of 16% and possibly more.
"The governor always said he was open" to increasing benefits "when there was better information," said Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Camille Anderson.
A rise in benefits is long overdue, contend attorneys, labor unions and other advocates for injured workers. Average permanent disability payments by the Schwarzenegger administration are among the nation's stingiest.
According to one group, Voters Injured at Work, people who lose a foot get $28,820, compared with the national average of $80,976. A lost eye fetches $17,714 versus $74,558. And deafness in one ear is worth $5,280, 83% below the national average.
That disparity may be about to be fixed, at least a little. The California Division of Workers' Compensation is issuing proposed regulations that, if approved, would boost permanent disability payments by at least 16%. And in the Legislature, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) is sponsoring a bill that over three years would double the total number of weeks that workers can receive permanent disability checks.
"We want to be able to look an injured worker in the eye and say we're not embarrassed about how we're treating you," Perata said. The senator, who's had two similar bills vetoed by the governor in 2006 and 2007, said a compromise with Schwarzenegger might be possible this year, now that the administration has acknowledged that some benefit increase is merited.
