AB 76 is a "trailer bill" that has sailed along at the California legislature under the radar. The bill deals with many topics, but includes workers' comp provisions.

Specifically, the bill deals with the $120 million fund to compensate workers who have suffered disproportionate wage loss.

Workers injured before 1/1/13 would not be able to make claims against the fund.

Hearings were not held on this. This did not come up in last week's presentation to CHSWC by DIR Director Christine Baker.

Thanks to blogger Dr. Robert Weinmann for bringing this to my attention.

Weinmann's analysis of AB 76 be found here in his June 16,2013 blog post:
http://politicsofhealthcare.blogspot.com

Here is a link where you can download a copy of the bill and a tally of the party-line vote on the bill:
http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery ... _on_budget

Stay tuned.

Julius Young
www.workerscompzone.com
www.boxerlaw.com

Bloggers are dependent on others.

I found that out this week as I was blocked trying to get into my own site.
At first it appeared that the site might have been hacked.

Perhaps I had succumbed to a phisherman.

But later it became apparent that it was simply a problem with the host's server.

Such is modern life. A guy I've never met arranged years ago to host on his dad's server.

It took digging through old paperwork for a couple of days to even find out how to contact the place where the blog was hosted.

We live in a time that is probably bad for people who tend toward paranoia.
In the last month we've seen the IRS overstep its bounds...The Justice Department take questionable steps to monitor the Associated Press and a Fox reporter.... Revelations in the last several days of harvesting cell phone and internet records from the providers most of us use....

Time to go listen to the Rolling Stones' "Fingerprint File". Here's what Mick Jagger wailed (link to play the song at the end of this post):


"Fingerprint file, you get me down
You keep me running
Know my way around. Yes, you do, child
Fingerprint file, you bring me down
Keep me running
You keep me on the ground
Know my moves
Way ahead of time
Listening to me
On your satellite

Feeling followed
Feeling tagged
Crossing water
Trying to wipe my tracks

And there's some little jerk in the FBI
A keepin' papers on me six feet high
It gets me down, it gets me down, it gets me down

You better watch out
On your telephone
Wrong number
They know you ain't home

And there's some little jerk in the FBI
A keepin' papers on me six feet high
It gets me down, it gets me down, it gets me down

Who's the man on the corner; that corner over there
I don't know. Well, you better lay low. Watch out

Keep on the look out
Electric eyes
Rats on the sell out
Who gonna testify
You know my habits
Way a head of time
Listening to me
On your satellite

And there's some little jerk in the FBI
A keepin' papers on me six feet high
It gets me down, it gets me down, it gets me down
It gets me down

Hello, baby, mm-hmm
Ah, yeah, you know we ain't, we ain't talkin' alone
Who's listening? Well I don't really know
But you better tell the SIS to keep out of sight
'Cause I know they takin' pictures on the ultraviolet light
Yes, uh huh, yeah, but these days it's all secrecy; no privacy
Shoot first, that' s right... you know
Bye bye.
Right now somebody is listening to...... you
Keeping their eyes peeled...... on you
Mmm, mmm, what a price, what a price to pay
All right. Good night, sleep tight"

The increased evidence that privacy is so, well, old-fashioned may be a yawn for millennials who have adopted a culture of wide self-revelation.

But all of this can hardly be good for that small group of injured workers who are feeling like they are under the microscope all the time. Just yesterday I spoke with one, who said the stress of litigation was tearing him up.

Films on his case arrived yesterday.

Anyway, it's good to be back up, online. Stay tuned. I'll be commenting soon on some of the DWC regs which are being revised.

Now, time to settle in and listen to the Stones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dLa2l1tyx0

Julius Young
www.workerscompzone.com
www.boxerlaw.com

Workers' comp may be becoming more and more of a women's issue.

Women are now 47% of the U.S. workforce. As women are a larger part of the workforce, workers' comp becomes a more important issue for them.

A May 29,2013 study by the Pew Research Center concludes that 40% of all households with children under the age of 18 include mothers who are either the sole or primary source of income for the family.

That's a huge social trend. Four out of ten households have mothers as the sole or primary provider!

Of those "breadwinner moms", 63% are single mothers and 37% are married mothers with a higher income than their husbands. The Pew study does not cite state specific figures, but it would not surprise me if the figures were even higher in California.

Pew also notes that single mothers are "more likely to be black or Hispanic, and less likely to have a college degree."

Obviously, then, career-altering work injuries may have a significantly disproportionate affect on minority populations.

Policymakers and students of policy (including California's Commission on Health, Safety and Workers' Compensation) need to be looking at these numbers as the California workers' comp system is reformed again and again.

In the last decade there has been relatively little attention paid to the concept of adequacy of long term wage replacement benefits. Generally, the focus has been on tamping down systemic costs. Few California legislators have stepped up to advocate for adequate benefits.

Those benefits are key for many "breadwinner moms" and their families.
If nothing else, the issue of how California workers' comp serves working women deserves more study.

Here is a link to the Pew study:
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/ ... nner-moms/

Stay tuned.

Julius Young
www.workerscompzone.com
www.boxerlaw.com

"California, home of high-tech, has tough time upgrading own computers".

When I viewed that headline of a Capitol Weekly article by Samantha Gallegos, I found myself chucking.

In the workers' comp community we know about that after having watched the rollout of EAMS (the electronic adjudication management system) several years ago. But workers' comp is not the only area where the state has struggled with tech.

It seems that the project to transition to a a new payroll management system, dubbed the 21st Century Project, is lagging and over budget.

Gallegos notes that:
"Gov. Jerry Brown’s rewritten budget for the 2013-14 fiscal year beginning July 1 calls for $14.5 million to wind down the operation and cover potential litigation between the controller’s office and SAP Public Services Inc., the system vendor that the state terminated in February as the problems mounted, said Jacob Roper, a spokesman for state Controller John Chiang. SAP, hired in 2010, was the second vendor to be cashiered. The year before, the state jettisoned an earlier vendor."

Recounting the background on the project, Gallegos says:
"The 21st Century Project was intended to improve the state’s mammoth management process involving payroll, benefits administration, and timekeeping, among other functions. The goal reflected the state’s efforts to learn from its earlier miscues to develop a workable system.
But difficulties quickly arose.
A 21st Century Project test group comprised of a small fraction of state workers’ paychecks experienced problems -- including under- and over-payments -- throughout an eight-month trial run, according to a recent report by the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Although the controller’s office was able to fix some of those problems, the state may still face litigation by those who were affected, the LAO noted.
The new and currently suspended system, called MyCalPAYS, was proposed back in 2004. Its initial estimated cost was $130 million and had originally been scheduled for full implementation by July 2009."
According to the LAO, these figures ballooned to an estimated project cost of $373 million and the implementation date was pushed back to September 2013. At the time of its termination, the state had spent $262 million of its total estimated project cost."

In workers' comp we've been there and done that.

If it's any consolation, EAMS does work, so the payroll project will eventually get solved.

With EAMS the glitches and hiccups have lessened over time. The critics of EAMS have muted. Parties have adopted workarounds.

EAMS is not an elegant system, reflecting the fact that it was based on programs written for other purposes that were adapted for workers' comp.

It does some things well. Checking for filed liens, selecting MSC dates and filing settlement papers for walk-thru approval are among some of the things that are easier to do with EAMS.

Other things are cumbersome with EAMS. Long forms. Separator sheets when scanning. Occasional EAMS outages. Cumbersome moving from document to document when organizing exhibits.

Overall I'd give EAMS what I call a "gentleman's C" grade.

Looks like the folks over at the California Controller's office would settle for a C at this point.

Stay tuned.

Julius Young
www.workerscompzone.com
www.boxerlaw.com

They call that a knee.

You can decide for yourself. But brace yourself. It's not a pretty picture.

I'm talking about the photo of Reggie Williams' knee.

The former football star is featured in a Sports Illustrated article about AB 1309, the bill which would limit the ability of professional athletes (including those in the minor leagues) to file California workers' comp claims.

Here's a link to the article:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl/ne ... index.html

As the author notes:
"It's possible that AB 1309 could be passed in a weaker form. For instance, the sides could grandfather in some current claimants so they maintain their existing benefits, or phase out their benefits gradually instead of abruptly terminating their cases. The ultimate irony remains that if the bill passes as currently written, Williams and other athletes would have to turn to government assistance in covering their medical costs. In that case, taxpayers would be the ones fitting the medical bills."

Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl/ne ... z2Slwmwg7e

Stay tuned. I'll continue to cover the controversy generated by AB 1309.

Julius Young
www.boxerlaw.com
www.workerscompzone.com