March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Workers’ comp debate

In the past few months I have been reading a lot of articles on the debate over Workers’ Compensation.

I am a small business owner in a local town and feel strongly that if an employee should get injured on the job, even though some injuries are questionable, that he or she should get compensated while he or she recovers, but with some incentive to return to work.

I would like to point out to some of the people who feel that the workers’ comp program should be left intact and not do anything that would take away from our employees, that the employees, in most cases, are not the ones collecting the big bucks.

One example of a claim against our company, and most companies have them, was described as a strained hand and forearm. The employee was out of work for a time and collected $1,937.01 in workers’ comp payments. This in itself is not that big a claim and could be justified. However, for professional fees related to this case, there was a hospital bill totaling $1,619.36, a doctor bill of $3,593.46 for treating the patient, which is almost double what the employee received, and then there are the attorney fees. The attorney fees, to make sure that this employee gets what he deserves, as the TV ads say, came to a total of $10,294.58. This is a total of $15,507.40 in professinal fees while the injured employee got $1,937.01.

I challenge anyone to argue that this type of system can possibly be in the best interest of our employees and the business community in our state.

It is a crime that some of our top politicians can sit in Augusta and cater to the lawyers who are doing nothing but taking money out of the pockets of the people in Maine, and we have to sit back and pay the premiums with no control over who gets paid.

This is not an isolated case, most businesses have them, and I encourage business people and especially employees to let their local politicians know that they have had enough, and to back Gov. McKernan on any upcoming legislation to stop this waste. Rodney G. Buswell Vice president Peavey Manufacturing Co. East Eddington


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