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| | Why I Think SB 863 Was Passed By The Legislature In California
By Lonce LaMon - September 5, 2012
I remember so well back in the 1970s when my mother would rant about Jerry Brown being a “bleeding heart liberal”. Well, my parents should be rolling in their graves now, as Jerry Brown is today in no way someone who could even closely be considered to be a bleeding heart liberal. The California governor has smelled the coffee and embraced reality.
California is today flat broke and Brown, in his second time around as California’s governor, more than knows it. He’s grown up and matured. And he’s ripe and ready to sign SB 863.
It’s funny when I think about Brown’s age and the fact he was an older member of the hippy generation that smoked pot and dropped acid. I remember when he dated Linda Ronstadt. Not that Linda was a pot smoker, but simply that she was a beautiful singer from this “me” generation. Isn’t that me-me-me attitude part of the cliché of our expanded generation that lived off our parents’ self-sufficiency and thought the system should just take care of us?
Don’t bogart that joint my friend! How we cruised along as immature children on our history’s prosperity and swelled our systems until we squandered all.
Brown has now severely sobered up to face California’s 17 Billion Dollar deficit. He has aggressively tackled the oversized state pension plans being paid to state workers that we now can in no way afford. This, of course, has made him egregiously
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California is today flat broke and Brown, in his second time around as California's governor, more than knows it. He's grown up and matured. And he's ripe and ready to sign SB 863. |
unpopular with that portion of his constituency, and he’s just had to suck it up. Now he can’t get the state employee pension matching-of-funds to start for some years to come because he can’t break the union contract. Well, something is going to have to break, because California, like most of the rest of our Nation, is completely broke.
We’re flat-ass broke. Virtually bankrupt. When are so many people going to come out of denial?
The people who are out of denial now know the workers’ compensation system in California can’t put any more expense upon employers, because if it does, new jobs have no chance of being created. The development of jobs and growth in the economy depends upon the private sector—not on the government. It’s never the government which creates jobs to build an economy and grows a gross national product. It’s always the private sector. And this is why SB 863 passed in the legislature in California last Friday night. It’s because the people, the proponents, the Legislature, and Governor Brown figured it out.
Now, the unexciting news is that every other sector now has to sacrifice and cow tow at this time in history to the private sector employers, or else we will not survive. If we don’t do this, we will have nowhere to go but down.
Christine Baker, the Director of the Department of Industrial Relations, figured it out. She’s an analytical thinker. That’s why she outspokenly supported SB 863. She went on a “listening tour” of California for several months, maybe a year, and she talked to employers, insurers, vendors, injured workers… all the players involved in the workers’ compensation system. She just listened.
She found out how much employers were hurting. How they could not afford their workers’ compensation premiums. How they were slammed with expenses that simply brutalized them and prevented them from further growth and hiring.
Christine Baker stated to an audience at a gathering of the Employers’ Fraud Task Force in Anaheim on April 23rd of 2012:
“It’s difficult for the employer. Their ex-mods are going up. Employers have to dismiss workers and one told me 20 of them came back with workers’ comp claims. And that’s a sad story too. The economy is such that they couldn’t keep the workers. There are horror stories. These are tough economic times. And we’ve got to make sure that the costs stay down. Stay down for the employer.”
Christine Baker, Director of the California Department of Industrial Relations, laughs as John Riggs motions to put some Mickey Mouse ears on her head. Both the Department of Industrial Relations and Disney were strong supporters of SB 863.
The costs have to stay down for the employer. There’s no other present solution. And Christine Baker at that same event went on to say more:
“Liens are overwhelming in Southern California. I don’t have to tell you. No other place in the country are there liens. Not even in Northern California are there liens. There’s a nine to one ratio, so it’s something happening here in Southern California. That seems off base. We need to get to the root of it. I’m very much a root cause kind of analytical thinker. Get to the root cause and fix that. We can find all the external things and blame everybody, but we need to get down to the root cause.
“We also hear about delays when resolving medical treatment. For whatever reason, there’s a delay there. And that triggers litigation. It triggers problems.
“The system is dysfunctional in targeted areas. And not serving the injured worker. And not at a reasonable cost to the employer.”
SB 863 will now initiate a charge of $150 as a filing fee for all lien filings, and according to the statistics, 384,000 of the liens in California are less than $5,000 and average around $1,500. At that level, the average negotiation is at 10% on $1,500 which translates to $150, therefore since that’s the same amount as the lien filing charge, it is predicted that nearly 384,000 liens will not be filed for reasons of no gain.
Last April at the Team Disney Auditorium Employers’ Fraud Task Force film premiere where Christine Baker spoke as the keynote speaker, it was stated by more than one attendee that more than 800,000 liens are floating around in the Los Angeles area Workers’ Compensation system at this time. With 384,000 liens hopefully eliminated and wiped down by the filing fee, this is a huge break for employers in cutting down this crippling expense upon them. It gives them some recovered money to be able to pay more in permanent disability benefits and recoup some dollars at the same time. Under SB 863, permanent disability benefits will increase. However, sleep disorders, sexual dysfunction, and psychiatric disability will not be added into the PD equation. And for good reason-- to be discussed in a future segment…
I remember how I just wrote recently that one unidentified advocate of SB 863 said, “There’s just so much that’s good about SB 863.” Well, perhaps it’s not so much that there’s so much that’s good about SB 863 from every point of view. Perhaps even the most cynical observer can at least see that there’s so much that’s necessary in SB 863.
To be continued…. With the MPNs, sleep studies, sexual dysfunctions, and psychiatric treatment…. And more…
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