COLUMN RIGHT/ BILL JONES : Untie This Noose on Our Economy : Until workers’ compensation is reformed, businesses will avoid California in droves.

When it began in 1913, California’s workers’ compensation system was designed with only one purpose--to adequately compensate workers who are injured on the job through no fault of their own.

This is what must guide us when the Legislature returns to Sacramento on Thursday to once again take up the politically volatile issue of workers’ compensation reform.

To employers and injured workers, California’s workers’ compensation system now means exorbitant insurance premiums and inadequate benefits.

To the rest of us, it means just one more government-sanctioned roadblock to job creation in the state.

Scores of news reporters and commentators across the state have detailed the workers’ compensation crisis and its impact on California’s economy. They have eloquently stated this is not a problem facing only certain types of employers, but every single one that operates in California. All agree that reforming workers’ compensation is by far one of the best things the Legislature can do to improve our business climate and encourage job creation in the state.

So, what is it about this system that has garnered such a groundswell of support for its overhaul?

Could it be that California’s workers’ compensation insurance premiums are the sixth-highest in the country while its benefit level is 15th from the bottom?

Could it be that an estimated 1 in 10 claims are fraudulent? Or that an estimated 25% of the money paid in claims is the result of outright fraud or bill-padding by workers’ compensation professionals?

Could it be that general medical costs are increasing at about 8% a year while those associated with workers’ compensation are increasing at about twice that?

Then again, could it be that what was originally designed as a no-fault system with no need for litigation has turned into a full-employment act for claimants’ attorneys? One recent survey found that in other states, lawyers were involved in 17% of all cases where benefits were paid; in California, that number is 45%.

California is at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to attracting business and keeping jobs here partially because of its corrupt and unfair workers’ compensation system. Why would a company want to locate here where workers’ compensation premiums have tripled in the last decade? Oregon just reduced its rates by 10%.

Why should we attempt to reform the system now and not wait for a new Legislature to convene in January, especially since the current Legislature has been unable to reform the system? Because this is a problem that gets measurably worse with every passing day.

Those who profit from the current system are a wealthy and powerful group of special interests--applicant attorneys and forensic physicians. In fact, they and their sympathizers have already circled their wagons by attempting to open the special legislative session to other issues designed to divert the focus of discussion away from workers’ compensation reform.

We cannot allow this to happen.

We must do our utmost to assist both sides of the workers’ compensation equation by providing real savings to employers and restoring adequate benefits to workers. Doing this leaves no room for tricks and false promises. To be realistic to all involved: There can be no increase in benefits to injured workers until verifiable savings are achieved by employers.

The legislative package that Sen. Ken Maddy (D-Fresno) and I will introduce addresses that basic premise. It will encompass meaningful and significant reforms aimed at litigation costs, fraud, stress claims and vocational rehabilitation. It will be true, structural reform of a good idea in concept that has gone bad in practice. It will upset the few who are profiting from a corrupt system and benefit the many who pay the tab.

Some will notice that some of the points we target in our proposal were included in Democrat legislation recently vetoed by the governor. The problem with those bills was not that they were necessarily all bad; they were sorely deficient. Papering over the problems while providing increased benefits to injured workers does not solve anything. Providing adequate benefits is our goal, but to do so without solving the underlying problems is impossible.

This is not the time to revel in partisan politics. If we have learned anything from the budget battle of 1992, it is the old adage, “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” If we want to avoid or lessen the budget problems next year, the sooner we can brighten the job climate in California, the better. California’s economy cannot afford to wait.