Restructuring Workers’ Comp Among Goals for Oklahoma Senate GOP

Reforming Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation system will be among state Senate Republicans’ top legislative goals for 2010.

Republicans, who enjoy a majority in the Oklahoma Senate, are led by Senate President Pro Tem Glenn Coffee (R-OKC) and Majority Floor Leader Todd Lamb (R-Edmond), who also chaired the Senate Republican Agenda Committee. They aim to build upon the successes of their first session in the majority in 2009, when they were able to usher in sweeping lawsuit reforms.

Coffee has said he wants to focus on altering the state’s workers’ compensation system as a way to encourage new business in the state. Asserting that the current workers’ compensation system is holding Oklahoma back in terms of business growth and opportunity, Sen. Coffee said workers’ compensation reform is a “vital plank in our 2010 agenda and a natural follow up to lawsuit reform.”

In introducing the legislative package at a Jan. 12 press conference, Sen. Lamb said the bills will be all about “jobs, jobs, jobs.” He said there “are a great many positive initiatives we can pursue without spending new money that will benefit Oklahoma families, and job creation, and inject new energy into our economy.”

Sen. Harry Coates, who will co-sponsor workers’ comp legislation with Coffee, laid out the Republican Senators’ goals for comp reform. Among them:

• A better definition of major cause. He suggested adopting the Arkansas measure which “defines major cause as 50.1 percent of an injury and it must be related to the work activity to be a major cause.”
• Adoption of the AMA [American Medical Association] treatment guide, which is also utilized by Arkansas.
• Creating a medical director position to oversee medical maintenance for severely injured employees.
• Consequences for lack of compliance with guidelines for both the provider and injured worker
• Utilizing vocational rehabilitation experts to help injured workers to return to the workplace
• Do a better job of pursuing fraud. “Right now our understanding is that maybe 10 percent of the claims may be fraudulent,” Coates said.
• Requiring instate adjusting of claims and requiring insurance companies to have an office in Oklahoma to speed that system up.

It’s also possible that the Senate Republicans will pursue ballot initiatives that would establish term limits for judges, binding arbitration and “maybe even a reduction in the number of work comp judges,” Coates said.

The state legislature also is expected in this session to tackle the privatization of the state-backed workers’ comp provider, CompSource Oklahoma, through either a sale or mutualization.

“Our caucus is united in its desire to bring a more efficient and productive state government to the people of Oklahoma, and I’m very proud of the legislative goals we’re introducing today and in the coming days,” said Pro Tem Coffee. “Oklahoma businesses and families will certainly benefit from the agenda we are laying out in 2010.”

In addition to workers’ compensation reform, with the legislative package they call Economic Development, Energy and Government Reform, the Senate Republicans hope to:

• Create an Office of Accountability and Innovation to eliminate waste in state government;
• Promote job growth through lower taxes and less regulation;
  Limit growth of government and reduce the tax burden of Oklahoma families through an ad valorem tax cap;
• Expand the back-to-school sales tax holiday to include school supplies:
• Reduce government spending and oppose new taxes;
• Advocate Oklahoma energy resources.

Senate Democrats say, however, that with their legislative package Republicans are “ignoring the huge elephant in the room,” namely the state’s budget crisis.

Oklahoma’s economy declined in the second and third quarters of 2009 faster than that of most other states. And it is not expected to rebound anytime soon, says Chad Wilkerson, branch executive for the Oklahoma City branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, according to the Associated Press.

Oklahoma Senate Democratic leader Charlie Laster says Republican leaders “refused to talk about what they are going to do to get us out of this billion dollar budget hole,” when they unveiled their legislative agenda.

“They spent their morning talking about all the proposals they will push that curry favor with Corporate America through giveaways to giant corporations and less regulation,” Laster said in an announcement on the Oklahoma Legislature’s Web site. “Need I remind Senate Republicans that a loosely regulated corporate America is what created the financial nightmare that resulted in a taxpayer bailout of companies who spent that money on million dollar bonuses for their CEOs.”