Workers comp bill goes before Senate today

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Oct 4, 2001 by Marie Price The Journal Record

Calvey said he would favor patching the fund with enough immediate funding to cover this month's payments to injured employees and wait until the 2002 session to address a permanent fix, or meet the fund's overall obligations with rainy day funds as well.

"I want to see a solution," Calvey said.

Rep. Larry Ferguson, R-Cleveland, former minority floor leader, said that he and many other GOP members fear the bill will hurt small businesses. They have few workers compensation claims, he said, but the bill as currently written would raise their trust fund assessment by a maximum of 6 percent every year.

Ferguson also objected to language that would assess uninsured employers up to 5 percent of total compensation paid out by them in awards. He said the only uninsured employers of which he is aware are small, one-person establishments that can ill afford any type of cost increase.

"And there's nothing in the bill that in any way affects the trial lawyers," Ferguson said.

Legislative Republicans heard a pitch for the bill from Keating Wednesday afternoon.

"My purpose in appearing before the caucus was to say that in my judgment this bill doesn't go far enough, but it makes some considerable progress," Keating said. "We need to get injured workers paid. We need to get more reform next year, but this is a beginning. And something's better than nothing in the reform arena."

The governor said he believes GOP lawmakers are tired of "nibble, nibble reform."

"They want fundamental change, fundamental cost-lowering in the system, and I agree with that," Keating said. "We need more, but we may have to wait until we have more Republicans to accomplish that."

However, the governor said that if the bill passes both houses in its current form, he intends to sign it.

Marie Price is the senior Capitol reporter of The Journal Record's Oklahoma Business News division.