Changes to comp laws offered > Nearly 30 bills given to panel

AUGUSTA — Seven years after implementing major revisions to Maine’s Workers’ Compensation law, legislators have submitted nearly 30 bills encouraging new — and old — changes that are making the state’s business sector uneasy.

The Legislature’s Labor Committee heard the first of several proposals Thursday, even as staffers for Gov. Angus S. King were reviewing the initiatives. King vetoed two bills in 1997 that would have provided legal advocates for claimants and added cost-of-living increases to benefits for some workers. Although both measures were backed by majority Democrats, Republicans sided with the governor to sustain the veto. Both bills are back this year and Dennis Bailey, the governor’s communications director, said little has changed in the last 24 months.

“We’re willing to look at any suggested changes,” he said. “But the arguments would have to be pretty compelling. The governor is not inclined to tinker with a law that’s working well unless someone can demonstrate why we should.”

Rep. Pat Hatch, D-Skowhegan and House chairwoman of the Labor Committee, said insurance companies are experiencing a banner year in Maine and that it’s time they showed a little more compassion to disabled Maine workers.

“Two years ago there were about 80 comp insurance companies and now there’s over 100,” she said, looking out at the crowd of 200 gathered in the hearing room. “My feeling is that the only reason they’re here today is because they’re making big bucks on the backs of injured workers. We need to have a discussion on this now. We’re looking forward to sitting down and talking with the governor because we know the system hasn’t been working for all the injured workers.”

When an impasse over Workers’ Compensation law changes between former Gov. John R. McKernan and Democrats in the Legislature forced a state shutdown in 1991, Peter Gore was working for the state Department of Human Services. Now the Topsham resident is taking the point on compensation issues for the Maine Chamber and Business Alliance. He remembers the bad old days of the “comp crisis” all too well.

“For 25 years workers’ comp has been a public policy flashpoint for this state,” he said. “Out of the pain of the 1991 shutdown came the comp reforms of 1992 and they didn’t come easily. Today we have a room full of employers who are now coming here for the second time in three years to support those 1992 reforms. I’ve spoken with one businessman who said this year was the first that he’s had a rate reduction even though he’s never had a claim. His story is simple: If his rates go up, then his ability to provide his employee with a raise diminishes. Employers direct any savings from their comp insurance to their employees, not their own pockets.”

Despite criticisms lodged by Democrats, Rep. Adam Mack, R-Standish, has already made up his mind that there is nothing about the state’s Workers’ Compensation Law in need of remedy. Mack, who also sits on the Labor Committee, said the compensation law is no longer a critical issue in the state.

“We have to be very careful that we don’t turn back the clock and wreck those 1992 reforms,” he said. “We want to keep money out of the lawyers hands by maintaining that injured workers receive more money while insurance costs decrease for businesses. A lot of the proposals coming before us this year seek to increase the amount of tax and contributions paid by employers. The assumptions of economic recession that drive the argument for increasing the tax are faulty. We don’t need to raise costs for businesses.”

The dollars-and-cents arguments fueling the comp debate were briefly sidelined Thursday as Derek Brown of Dennysville told the committee how a loading accident had left him a triple amputee when a line he was holding came into contact with thousands of volts of electricity.

He spoke in favor of LD 225, An Act to Amend the Maine Workers’ Compensation Act of 1992 as it relates to Compensation for the Amputation of a Body Part, sponsored by Rep. Albion Goodwin, D-Pembroke. The bill would provide a lump sum benefit in addition to the current weekly benefit when the employee’s injury is an amputation of a body part. The lump sum would be equal to the amount of weekly benefit times the period of presumed incapacity that is figured on a set of established scales and tables in the law.

Gesturing with a Boston elbow prosthetic that has taken the place of his left arm, Brown said his entire life changed as the result of the accident that cost him more than $180,000 in medical bills during the first three years after the amputations.

“These parts don’t grow back,” he said. “It’s a life-long, sustaining injury. I spoke with the governor two years ago to support this bill and he opposed the bill saying we had to `sacrifice the few to help the many.’ I don’t believe I should have to be sacrificed so a few people can work.”

James Case of the Maine AFL-CIO acknowledged that under current law, Maine workers who are permanently disabled are offered 800 times their weekly compensation rate in an effort to recognize that the worker has lost a large part of his life, in addition to lost wages.

“Representative Goodwin’s bill is not an adequate or full substitute for the losses these workers have sustained,” Case said. “But it is an attempt to recognize that when an individual loses both arms, both legs, one arm and one leg, or both eyes, they have lost a great deal more than just the capacity to earn money. This bill is an effort to recognize that on a one-time basis.”

But one aspect of the bill would require an employer to cover all injuries occurring on or after Jan. 1, 1993. The effect of that provision, according to Gore and John Marr of Maine Employers’ Mutual Insurance Co., would be an immediate cost increase to the comp system in the form of an unfunded liability. The retroactive component of the bill would seek an increase in past insurance premiums back to 1993 as well as those in the future.

“Any retroactive benefit change, regardless of the implementation date causes extreme financial harm to the 18,000 policy holders of Maine Employers’ Mutual and will adversely affect the finances of every other business in the state as well,” Marr said.

The Labor Committee is scheduled to continue its review of comp bills Friday and throughout next week before scheduling work sessions on the proposals.