Another blow...

Don't get hurt at work in California! That's the message from the state supreme court in Brodie v. WCAB, issued today. It is just the latest in a line of decisions that in effect say that the legislative intent of the poorly drafted, strong armed legislation put forth by the incredibly ignorant Gov. Schwarzenegger was to prevent insurance companies for having to pay the benefits they are charging premiums to provide.

The effects have been devastating to the average person who has had the misfortune to sustain any sort of serious injury while helping his employer make money.

Among the changes: if the injury is really serious, and you have to be off work for more than two years - too bad. Go collect social security. If you can get it. Otherwise it's time to apply for welfare. And the governor calls himself a Republican. I don't understand why shifting an insured interest in the private sector to the public dole is considered to be in line with conservative ideals. At a time when most folks are talking about trying to reduce entitlements, the governor with one stroke of his pen has put a tremendous increase on the taxpayers burden.

Next - when you get hurt, don't even think about trying to go to your own doctor. You must go to the company doctor. But the insurance company does not have to do what its own doctor recommends. A new system of oversight was instituted that has resulted in the delay of medical treatment to most people in the system. Remember - this is a denial of treatment recommended by the insurance company's doctor, not someone who might be biased in favor of the worker. If a doctor goes against the desires of the claims examiner, that doctor gets dropped from the list of approved doctors.

If you are hurt to the degree where you have a work restriction that prevents you from doing your job - oh well. Vocational rehabilitation is a thing of the past, and the new permanent disability system does not take work restrictions into consideration. The employer can fire someone that the doctor says cannot return to work. Sometimes that person has a permanent disability rating of 0 under the governor's system. They've lost their livelihood with no compensation, and it is perfectly legal. There's nothing a judge can do.

If you have something in your past that in any way contributes to your level of disability, even if it was dormant and was not disabling in any way until the injury lit it up, your award is discounted. Prior pregnancies have been held to make women more susceptible to abdominal injuries, and in some cases the compensation has been reduced by significantly more than 50%.

This new decision says that if you had a prior injury that rated 15% permanent disability, and now your new injury takes you up to a rating of 50% permanent disability you are not entitled to receive as much money combining the awards from the two injuries as you would if you simply had one injury at 50%. It is a windfall to the insurance company. Understand, I am not talking about double payments - I am talking about combining the money received from the original injury with the money the insurance company has to pay for the new injury. Because of a graduated system of payment, the worker ends up with a lot less for having had two injuries than he or she would have had if there had only been one.

Buy stock in insurance companies that write workers' compensation policies in California. They are rolling in exorbitant profits while people lose their homes.