Oakland Speak-Out For Injured Workers At CA State Hearings

2/9 Oakland Speak-Out For Injured Workers At CA State Hearings

(415)738-2184/510-978-7435
On Thursday Feb 9 at the Oakland State Building at 9:30 AM injured workers will speak-out about
the attack on them as a result of the deregulation of workers' comp. Tens of thousands of
workers have been unable to receive medical care for their injuries and some have committed
suicide as well as losing their homes and families.

The California Coalition For Workers Memorial Day
Supports
Labor Speak-out At
State Hearing On Health & Safety and Workers' Compensation


Date: Thursday - February 9, 2006
Time: Hearing at 10 AM- Press Conference at 9:30 AM
Place: Elihu M. Harris State Building
1st Floor, Auditorium

The deregulation of Workers' comp has been a disaster for tens of thousands of injured workers in California. They have faced insurance companies who refuse to pay for healthcare and compensation for their injuries with no penalties for this criminality. Workers are no longer able to go to their own doctors and company doctors are refusing to treat them under the "new" guidelines that the legislature and the governor implemented. Workers are dying who are being ignored by these companies, the governor and nearly every one of the Democratic and Republican legislators who supported this deregulation.
The law however has been very good for the employers and insurance companies. Over $15 billion which should have gone to injured workers has instead ended up in the coffers of these corporations.
At the same time self-insurers like the Adventist Hospital Chain and Kaiser have run wild do to the lack of regulation.
When injured workers fight back like Nurse Practitioner Barb Clark who was hurt at a the Adventist Hospital in Bakersfield they become the target of the employer. Her medical records were released to the public to retaliate against her, she was attacked on the road and the company with the support of the California DIR have sought to prevent her from suing by arguing that she is mentally incompetent.
“The shell games have to stop,” Clark said, referring to the Governor’s legal affairs secretary, Andrea Hoch, allegedly running the Division of Worker’s Compensation (DWC) from the Governor’s office.
The DWC should be operated from within the DWC with strict accountability, not by a political aide on the Governor’s staff,” cited Clark. Clark’s lawsuit alleges that Andrea Hoch is more or less still running the DWC while acting as the Governor’s legal affairs secretary even though she left the post of DWC head almost six months ago.
DIR director John Rhea is also personally responsible for these criminal cover-ups and his department with the support of Governor has done damage control for these insurance and corporate executives attacking injured workers.
Join injured workers and health and safety advocates when they will speak-out at the Oakland hearing on Thursday Feb 9, 2006. There will be a press conference at 9:30 AM in the Lobby.
The Coalition also is for the establishment of a single payer medical system in California that would eliminate the role and control of the insurance companies in healthcare. Californians cannot afford to allow the insurance companies to run the healthcare system and all workers whether injured at work or off the job are entitled to medical care. The present "employer based" medical insurance system is a life and death threat to millions of California workers.
The California Coalition For Workers Memorial Day is also planning a statewide protest on Workers Memorial Day Friday April 28, 2006 at 11:00 AM on the west steps of the State Capitol in Sacamento. You can find more out about this by going to
http://www.workersmemorialday.org
or phoning
(415)738-2184 (510)978-7435

http://www.dir.ca.gov/CHSWC/Meetings/2006/CHSWC_Agenda02092006.html

Commission on
Health and Safety
and Workers' Compensation
ommission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation - commission meeting
Date: Thursday - February 9, 2006
Time: 10 AM
Place: Elihu M. Harris State Building
1st Floor, Auditorium
1515 Clay Street
Oakland, California

AGENDA
I. Call to Order
* Approval of minutes from the December 9, 2005 CHSWC meeting in Oakland
Angie Wei, CHSWC Chair
II. DWC Update: Carrie Nevans, Acting Director (Invited)
Reform Efforts and Regulations
Destie Overpeck, Chief Counsel
Insurance Study
Glen Shor, Research Program Specialist
Medical Access Study
Anne Searcy, MD, Associate Medical Director
III. * Permanent Disability Rating Schedule Recommendation
Lach Taylor, Workers' Compensation Judge, CHSWC
Christine Baker, CHSWC Executive Officer

IV. A Report on Repackaged Drugs
Frank Neuhauser, Survey Research Center, UC Berkeley
V. * Executive Officer Report
Christine Baker, CHSWC Executive Officer

VI. * Other Business / Proposals / Public Questions and Comments**


* May result in an action item for CHSWC consideration and/or vote
**Please Note: Public comments are limited to three minutes per speaker.
Topics are subject to CHSWC review and approval.
The agenda may be adjusted, if necessary, depending upon the time needed for discussion of each item.


<http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-comp4feb04,1,7560729.story?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1&cset=true>

From the Los Angeles Times


Workers' Comp Savings Detailed


State employers' costs have been cut by at least $8.1 billion, a
report finds. Critics say injured employees are paying through loss
of benefits.

By Marc Lifsher
Times Staff Writer

February 4, 2006

SACRAMENTO California's overhaul of its troubled workers' compensation
insurance system has saved employers at least $8.1 billion over the last
three years, and the benefits to the economy are expected to continue,
according to a study sent to the governor and Legislature on Friday.

The report commissioned by the state Department of Industrial Relations
found that workers' comp premiums paid by businesses and nonprofit
organizations, which soared as much as 200% in the early part of the
decade, have been almost cut in half since July 2003.

What's more, rates in California, the highest in the nation in 2004,
have dropped to 1996 levels and now are lower than those in other big
states such as Texas and Florida, the report said.

Democratic lawmakers, labor unions and advocates for injured workers
complain that at least some of the savings created by passage of the
2003 and 2004 workers' compensation laws has been at the expense of
benefits and medical care for employees injured on the job.

"We're pleased that the rates are dropping, but this [report] only looks
at half of the equation," said Steven Maviglio, a spokesman for Assembly
Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles). "It doesn't look at whether the
savings are coming out of the hide of injured workers."

Maviglio noted that another major study being finalized by the state
Commission on Health, Safety and Workers' Compensation concluded that
rules imposed last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration
had reduced benefits for permanently injured workers by more than 50%.

"Clearly, insurance companies have done very well by the reforms, and so
have businesses," Maviglio said. "But we think that everybody has to
benefit."

To that end, Democratic leaders in the Legislature said they hoped to
work with the governor's office on revising regulations to "address the
shortfalls that we seem to be seeing," Maviglio said.

A spokesman said the governor was open to fine-tuning some regulations
that determine the extent of a worker's injuries the key factor in
calculating benefits. But Schwarzenegger is not interested in rolling
back any of the accomplishments of his signature workers' compensation
legislation, spokesman Daryl Ng said.

For his part, state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, a strong
supporter of the workers' comp overhaul, urged both the governor and
lawmakers to make sure that "employees are not being shortchanged by the
very system designed to help them."

Garamendi has complained that insurers have been profiting unduly from
the workers' comp overhaul at the expense of their policyholders.

The study circulated Friday, however, noted that although insurers had
reported record profits, they had shared 86% of the savings from the new
laws with their customers.

"Major employers are seeing significant reductions" in their insurance
bills, said Jeanne Cain, senior vice president of the California Chamber
of Commerce. "This allays concerns that the insurance industry would not
pass their savings on to employers."

Insurers also said they were open to doing research that would go beyond
what they dismissed as "anecdotal evidence" presented by injured
workers' advocates of flaws in the workers' comp overhaul. They said
they hoped that the report would quiet calls by some Democratic
legislators for a law capping workers' comp insurance rates.

Workers have complained that since the system was overhauled they have
had trouble getting insurance company approval for medical treatments,
prescription drugs, surgeries and physical therapy.

The new report, compiled by insurance consulting firm Bickmore Risk
Services for $768,000, underscores that the drop in claims and expenses
has made workers' compensation "a profitable line of coverage." Private
insurers now are competing strongly for business and are undercutting
premiums quoted by the State Compensation Insurance Fund by an average
of 15.2% in 2005, the report said.

As a result, the State Fund, a government-sponsored insurer of last
resort for businesses that have trouble buying coverage, has lost some
of its market dominance. Its share of the state's workers' compensation
business has dropped from 58% in 2003 to 36% in 2005, the Bickmore
report said.

Are The 7th Day Adventists Hospital Bosses Crazy?

Barbara Clark was a nurse at the 7th Day Adventist Hospital in Bakersfield and was injured on the job due to the conditions in the hospital. Although she was seriously injured, the 7th Day Adventists refused to care for her and instead tried to terrorize her. She has lost her house and her life has been torn apart. Now the 7th Day Adventists in order to silence her have enlisted the support of Shwarzenegger's California DIR director Andrea Hoch who is trying to get her ruled "mentally incompetent" so she will not be able to continue with her lawsuit. One has to ask who is "mentally incompetent" the injured worker or the 7th Day Adventists, DIR and the Governor?

http://www.barbclark.org
http://www.barbclark.org/BC_Clip1.mp3 Ku Klux Klan style terrorism in California

http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20060123/bs_prweb/prweb335876_1



Sacramento Protest Planned by Handicapped Workers to Stop Governor Schwarzenegger from Shuffling off Accountability for the Disabled

Feb 1, 2006 Rally
12:00 Noon
651 I St./6th St. Sacramento Federal Courthouse

Mon Jan 23, 7:00 AM ET

(PRWEB) - Sacramento (PRWEB) January 23, 2006 -- Handicapped and disabled injured workers are planning a protest on the steps of the Sacramento federal courthouse February 1st at noon to complain about the Governor’s handling of federal funding used in rehabilitation and workers compensation programs and seek a Department of Justice probe into alleged funding abuses.


“There are two many “acting directors” creating a puzzling shell game where no one seems accountable for enforcement of the rights of the disabled and federal rehabilitation funds,” reports nurse Barbara Clark. She is suing the acting director of the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), John Rea, in Sacramento federal court (see Clark vs. Rea, Case No.: NO. 2:05-CV-2410-FCD-KLM) for enforcement of the rights of handicapped injured workers under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“The shell games have to stop,” Clark said, referring to the Governor’s legal affairs secretary, Andrea Hoch, allegedly running the Division of Worker’s Compensation (DWC) from the Governor’s office.

“The DWC should be operated from within the DWC with strict accountability, not by a political aide on the Governor’s staff,” cited Clark. Clark’s lawsuit alleges that Andrea Hoch is more or less still running the DWC while acting as the Governor’s legal affairs secretary even though she left the post of DWC head almost six months ago.

“I never thought I would see the day when the lives of disabled and handicapped people would be in the hands of a legal secretary reporting to a cash register Governor who seems accountability only to his special interest pals,” Clark said.

Clark is a disabled handicapped injured worker that was injured on the job while on duty at an Adventist hospital chain medical center. According to Clark, John Rea and Andrea Hoch have the power to enforce several court orders against the Adventists for payment of her untreated medical injuries.

For more information about Barbara Clark’s lawsuit visit: http://www.barbclark.org and http://www.myfundstory.com