Workers' Comp Doesn't Work
Printer-friendly version
Send by email
By Sam Gold
It hasn’t since the insurance industry got their claws into it, and it won’t until their sphere of influence is sufficiently reduced to a point where the system can achieve it’s primary goal: compensating the occupationally injured for their inability to compete in an ever changing workplace and getting them back to work as quickly as possible.
All the occupationally injured ask for is a little respect and dignity and maybe a bit of help dealing with what can sometimes be insurmountable odds. Yet, the truth just seems to get swept by the wayside and replaced by rhetoric meant to paint the injured workers as crooks and frauds and a drain and burden on society.
Workers’ Comp is not about truth, justice, fairness, equity or even honesty; it’s about what you can try to prove in front of a judge; it’s about money and power and what it can buy for the insurance industry.
Are these some really strong words? Yes. But sadly it’s the truth! Let’s take a peek at what it buys them.
First off, the employer can do no wrong! They can maliciously cause injuries and commit acts of total gross negligence and simply skate because of the “Exclusive Remedy” doctrine that indemnifies them against any liability, supposedly making this a no-fault system. Ask any injured worker how they are treated by the system and they’ll tell you that they are made to feel like it’s their fault they were injured.
Make one tiny mistake in a deposition, and the Special Investigations Unit of the insurance company will refer the case to the local District Attorney for fraud and perjury prosecution. These DA’s get money from the state Fraud Assessment Commission for successful prosecutions and they aren’t afraid to commit fraud to get money to fight fraud. Now on the other hand, insurance company doctors and defense attorneys simply lie thru their teeth; they can do no wrong. They are covered by what is known as litigation privilege.
I can tell you story upon story of innocent injured workers whose lives have been destroyed by DA’s who simply took the word of the insurance companies as the truth without an independent investigation being performed, only to find out later that the insurer had been caught with their pants down and that this was a convenient form of retaliation against those whistleblowers who had the guts to hold them accountable to the letter of the law.
The insurance industry and their friends at the Chambers of Commerce spend millions of media dollars running the same old manufactured videos to portray the injured worker as the cause of Worker’s Compensation fraud, but by their own admission it’s less than 1%. So where is the other 99% and why don’t we hear about it? As long as they have the ability to deflect attention away from the crimes that they commit, the injured worker will always be the scapegoat.
Recently, the Texas Supreme Court eliminated the rights of injured workers to sue Workers' Compensation insurance carriers that act in bad faith, saying such litigation interferes with the state's Workers' Compensation system. So who is looking out there for the rights of Texas’ injured workers? Nobody. Surprising what the money in their war chest can buy these days.
These insurance companies buy entire legislatures with their PAC and campaign donations. What chance does a poor injured worker have when he can barely keep the roof over the heads of himself and his family? This benefits system was supposedly designed to help workers when they can’t help themselves but they do exactly the opposite.
If a worker is permanently disabled, the future disability payouts simply amount to chump change and another formerly productive worker is thrown on the roles of Social Security and welfare.
You and I can stop this nonsense by letting your legislators know that you’re not going to put up with this graft and corruption any more or someone else will be running for their seat come election time!
It’s time to balance the scales once again and give the poor injured worker a fighting chance instead of letting big insurance convolute and bastardize the system.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sam Gold is an injured worker who is also volunteer director of the first national injured workers advocacy organization, Injured Workers' Television Network.
- megan's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
- Send by email
I do understand exactly what youre saying here Mr. Sam Gold. But what do you suggest I do, when my state rep does not even acknowledge my grievances. I sent certified letters to them and no one ever replied to any of my letters.
If I was to take this matter to court. The Courts in California are under close scrutiny and have been alleged to have been part of judicial corruption.
Many of the Judges alleged to have been corrupted our Justice System and are on the take (bribed). The Legislature and former Gov. A. S. passed a LAW that immunized the corrupt judges and government officials from prosecution for accepting illegal bribes. The immunity is retroactively when it passed SBX2-11. The whole California Judicial System has been implicated and are trying to cover-up their misconducts.
There is no justice to injured workers and or anyone who seek to challenge the corruption that is and has taken place in the California System of governing and to put an end to it. Right now the justice system is "BROKEN" and disfunctional.
Too many good attorneys are too afraid to Challenge the Justice System and many "bad" lawyers which have been alleged to have been involved in this the corruption and cver-up is intent to do everything in their power to hide the corruption, their involvements to escape prosecution. The Justice Department is in so much trouble that it would take more people than just the injured workers to stand-up against these ruthless individuals. The general public has no idea what goes on in the WC System until they actually experience the problems that WE already know. We need to stop complaining but rather start educating the general public AND expose the evidences WE already have and gathered. So the general public will become more educated and have some actual evidence and documents to review. Proof to back up our allegation is more effective to get the public's attention. Let the evidences tell the story. When it is expose then perhaps the public will actually demand an investgation in the matter, if they have something legal documents to go by and examine. It is useless task to get our state representative to listen and do something about this when they may be involved in the corruption and cover-up. It is an organized crime (RICO)that requires federal intervention and investigation.
Many injured workers has been demoralized by the system and there are others that are TOO ill and disabled to speak up or able to participate in a unified protest against the insurances' bad practices. How do we get our Legislature to listen to us?
We created the Injured Workers Television Network so that injured workers and their advocates have a place to tell the truth about Workers Compensation. WE created this, injured workers, not applicants attorneys INJURED WORKERS did!
A state-of-the-art internet based network quality TV network to spread the truth all around the world, not just in specific geographic locations.
But it needs the support of all those it benefits, especially applicants attorneys. For more info. www.iwtn.org.
. . . by the implementation of actual universal health care.
One of the mysteries to me about the entire national health care debate is why no one has mentioned workers comp in the same paragraph. The rationale for WC has been to cover work-related injuries--for those who do not have health insurance, esp. This of course leaves out "work" such as housework, home child-care, etc.
The process is painfully expensive and laborious, putting the inefficiency of the "health care" "insurance" "industry" to shame. I assume they can only envy the proportion of WC funds that go to "run" this "system"--with complaints from essentially all participants.
Given true universal health coverage, specialized health care funds, including WC, would seem to have little justification. The elimination of what would then be a redundant system would save bureaucracy, money, time, and effort. And would seem to be a large step in the direction of an "employer" and "business-friendly" California.
Dear Mr. Gold,
The San jose Mercury News is doing story called "loss of Trust". It says, it is: a two-day series in this newspaper, highlighted cases of private conservators and trustees submitting six-figure bills to incapacitated adults under the court's watch. In some cases, they are charging lofty hourly rates that are double what's allowed in neighboring counties.
As I read this story, the seriously injured workers comes to mind. "Court-appointed trustees and conservators are appointed by judges to handle the daily affairs and finances of elderly and disabled people who lack support of family or friends. Their fees have grown to alarming levels over the years in Santa Clara County, evidenced by the case of Danny Reed, a 37-year-old man left brain-damaged after he was struck twice by cars. Reed's court-appointed trustee Thomas Thorpe and his attorneys charged more than $108,000 for 41/2 months' service. And -- in an all-too-common probate scenario justified by California law -- Reed has been billed about $260,000 by Thorpe and his attorneys in a legal fight over the original bill".
"With Santa Clara County's top judges promising reform, advocates for the elderly and local probate attorneys on Monday called for swift action to stop court-appointed estate and care managers from charging excessive fees to the dependent adults they serve."
"The Superior Court on Monday vowed changes within weeks. "Not years, not months, but weeks," said Assistant Presiding Judge Brian Walsh.
"We are not going to stand for our most vulnerable being taken advantage of -- period."
Presiding Judge Richard Loftus and top probate Judge Thomas Cain have been surveying courts up and down the state for solutions since the newspaper approached the bench months ago with early findings of its investigation.
The changes won't come soon enough, said elder rights advocate Pat McGinnis, executive director of the nonprofit California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. She said "there's no justification" for six-figure bills that deplete life savings, like the ones highlighted in "Loss of Trust."
As I said: Unless and until we find a functioning Court System in California, the trust and confidence of Californians will never see and find justice for individual Californians seeking it unless they can afford or can find an Attorney that will properly represent their client's interest before their own and a Judge that should do what is right for the public and not be so lax with the client with the most financial influence.
Currently it seems like Movable Type is the preferred blogging platform available right now. (from what I've read) Is that what you're using on your blog?