Comments about ‘High court rules on workers comp fund’

What a disaster for workers throughout Utah. Since nearly 1/3 of the workers in Utah have no health insurance, how is this going to be paid? What if the person who has health insurance and their carrier disputes that the injury is work related? Where does that leave the worker? How is conflicting medical opinions going to be resolved and by what judicial means? There is going to be a lot of doctor shopping to find a friendly medical opinion that will support the injury.

Of course, it won't be at all difficult to come up with an impartial standard to measure an employee's propensity to disease.

Sometimes it is very difficult to figure out where one starts and ends. I have had to use workmans comp at work a few times and it is a joke.

Congressman Chaffetz is doing the best he can to thwart this recent rise in socialist big government. I hope this stimulus program doesn't come back to bite us middle class that doesn't make the $174,000 like the Congressman. Where is Congressman Chaffetz and his cot when we need him?

This is one area that has been horribly abuse by workers stiffing the system at the expense of those who fully needed it. I can't blame the courts for trying to bring a little balance back to the system.

And what about employer obligations to insure a safe and hazard free woring enviornment? Many employers violate safe working conditions and is the most common cause of on the job injuries. Especially with chemicals and hazardous materials and lifting. Employees can't complain about unsafe working conditions or they get fired so where does employer get off? Employers may pay in to these funds on registered workers but after that the employee is forced to work in bad conditions. The employee must prove employer neglect but in so doing he loses his job. And the employees, because of the 'right to work' law, says that employees cannot file an organized complaint. Many on the job injuries already go unreported because employers threaten them with their jobs if they do. This results in accumulative injuries and job illiness from employer related interference. Perhaps employers should bear more responsibilty in these costs and prove themselves as responsible for safety on the jobs. Employers violating safety should cover more of the expenses.

With this drastic decrease in liability for WCF I expect to see rates decreased for all of us immediately.

The story states
...Now, those expenses are going to be parsed out between the part that is directly attributable to the employee and the part that might relate to an individual's propensity to a disease.

1) It reads like the"employee" and the individual (one and the same) pays 100%

2) Who the h*ll is going to pay for all testing to accurately determine Propensity for a disease? No doubt this will also be paid by the employee.

Heck of a job Chaffetz supporters

This is Utah government at it's best.

Wah, Wah, Wah! If we continue to make employers responsible for everything, there will be no more employers. Only very high paying, high skills jobs will be available, and even these jobs will be scarce. If you think that the "poor" workers have it bad now, keep increasing the burdens on employers and ALL the jobs will be in China and Mexico.

People need to take better care of themselves, stop overeating, start being aware of ergonomics in the workplace, start exercising, stop eating so much junk food, start being aware of hazards and risks, slow down, wear appropriate footwear, use proper techniques to lift heavy objects, get help when needed, learn about "neutral" body positions, avoid non-neutral working positions, being proactive in their healthcare instead of waiting until a big problem develops, etc., etc., etc.

I think it is a great move for the high court to shift some of the responsibility back to individuals and workers. Until we are all vigilent and part of the solution, we are all part of the problem.

As the article points out, the proper solution rests with the legislature (God help everyone involved!).

I'm also curious, I've always understood workers' comp to be a compromise--workers get their medical bills paid without having to go to court, but in exchange are stripped of their ability to sue their employers for negligence. If portions of their medical care are now excluded from the workers comp statute, I wonder if the employees could now pursue those damages in a negligence suit against the employer (assuming that liability could be established under a negligence standard).

Maybe some clever attorney will try it. If it worked, you'd get your legislative action soon enough!

It seems to me that maybe most of the comments above come from employees and not employers. What about the employees who are lazy and who look at doing an injury (real or not or preexisting) and then only want someone else to pay for it. From this article it sounds like the court is really trying to make things fair for all. Why should the employer have to pay for a made up injury or for someone's preexisting condition? Not all employees are honest with their so called injuries.

Nice of Utah to let the insurance companies control policy. You KNOW the employers/insurance companies will make that tenuous "propensity for the disease" part control the whole settlement--they'll end up paying little or nothing. The Legislature needs to ditch this law and start over--minus the kickbacks and campaign contributions that obviously designed the law in the first place.

I think many above are overreacting because that is not what the court ruled. Basically, if there are pre-existing conditions - i.e. the guy has had previous back problems - then the company might be responsible for only part of the expense under workers compensation. However,if the man also has medical coverage under the company's health plan then he should be able to get the rest covered by the medical insurance.

The alternative is if the current employer would be responsible for the whole expense, that employer is going to be very careful about who he hires to screen out any person who has previous medical or workers compensation conditions so he doesn't get stuck with the bill. Maybe, all of you would like to see the guy with the back problems unable to find a job and stuck on welfare rather than someone taking the chance by hiring him.

If people knew the law, they would have taken these issues to Federal Court? I am not sure counsel for the Occupational issue took the matter to the correct court?

this is the same old problem that exists in the USA as a whole. "some body else take care of ME! Bail ME out of something that really is my responsibility" If you are a Clean One Owner and you are injured at work the employer/insurance carrier should be responsible. however, if you have pre-existing conditions then how is that your employers fault or their problem or their responsibility?

These decisions only uphold what has been happening in the industry for years. Most insurance companies and self-insured employers have historically apportioned reimbursement for medical treatment for workers with an occupational disease - so long as there is medical evidence to support that apportionment. This practice may have stopped or been curbed, briefly, after the Labor Commission issued its decision on these cases. However, it is nice to see the high court interpret this statute correctly; this will get all the players back on track. These decisions do not change anything for workers, they only affirm the status quo.

"And what about employer obligations to insure a safe and hazard free woring enviornment? Many employers violate safe working conditions and is the most common cause of on the job injuries."

Document , document, document, in extreme safety violation cases, there is always OSHA........

Most of you commenting above just don't understand the problem created by the Court. If you have a pre-existing condition of some kind - but which does not require treatment - but that is aggravated by your workplace environment, you've got immediate medical bills which will only partly be covered by workers' compensation insurance. If you hadn't been exposed at work, you wouldn't have needed treatment, so what is fair? The worker gets shafted and industry wins again - at the expense of the expendable worker. Sheesh.