Texas’ workers comp system is still broken
Texas has never really fixed its workers compensation system. But it seems to be a little less broken than earlier this decade when I penned a four-part series of editorials urging specific reforms during the last round of major legislative review in 2005. And I say a little, as evidenced in this impressive four-part series earlier this year from the Texas Tribune. Many of the same problems are on the table.
Oversight of this broken system now falls to Ryan Brannan, an advisor in the Governor’s Office Division of Budget, Planning and Policy, who Gov. Rick Perry recently appointed as commissioner of Workers’ Compensation at the Texas Department of Insurance. The previous commissioner, Rod Bordelon, left earlier this month after nearly six years on the job.
As I mentioned, the complaints are essentially the same – that the workers comp system is expensive for employers and injured workers drag a burden-of-proof anvil into hearings making it very, very difficult for them to win their case. Workers comp remains an impossible morass, even as state officials tout statistics showing that disputes, claims, injury rates, costs and premiums and medical access are ”better.”
One major issue is that Texas is the only state where participation in the workers compensation system is voluntary. A worker who falls off of a roof is flat out of luck.
More at http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/08/texas-workers-comp-system-is-still-broken.html/ .
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