Honorable Representatives and Senators:
I have been watching and learning quite a lot in the last 5 years since my family has been impacted by a disabling workplace injury.
What I learned was that the w/c system as practiced in Florida is absolutely unAmerican in general tone, if you think that "justice for all" is an American goal.
Last year, injured workers through Sen. Tony Hill introduced a bill (SB2416) that would for the first time ever create changes that would actually help injured workers in their efforts to get as whole as possible.
Unfortunately, it was not a carrier or business bill and so it was duly ignored, as has occurred every year that I've been tracking workers comp legislation.
It really is time - waaaay past time - for Florida lawmakers to take a look at the w/c system in Florida from HOW IT AFFECTS THE WORKERS, the end-consumers or clients that the system was designed form.
I urge you to take a look at last year's bill and get the gist of it. I urge you to back reform efforts next year FOR workers, in spite of the protestations --- oh, so loud and oh, so well-funded --- of the insurance and business industriies.
Injured workers have two basic points to make that just aren't heard. Here they are.
Are you ready? Hearing aids turned up?? Okay.......
The first one: The basic laws protecting injured workers are so illegally implemented/non-implemented/delayed/denied that they are useful only to some injured workers and definitely useful to the carriers and other professional players who make money from the system.
Witness, please, how the w/c court system is backlogged, how people wait years (really!) for assistance, how the deputy chief judge and Gov. Bush have refused to fund extra judges to expedite the case backlogs.
Think about it this way - if the law, which is SUPPOSED to be self-executing, were in reality self-executing, workers wouldn't be filing so many petitions for benefit. If the carriers would actually do what the law required, most of those cases would just go away.
Imagine that happening. No backlog. Immediate medical treatment; timely fiscal assistance. All the complaints about claimant attorney fees would disappear because we wouldn't need attorneys. Are you imagining that?
But it won't happen. Not in Florida in our lifetimes - not without legal remedies.
Being legal costs carriers money. They are so well-funded that they can afford to ignore the law, unless and until challenged at w/c court, the JCC.
And then they can play the legal game forever if desired because they can afford to. What do they have to lose??? Not much in Florida.
Meanwhile, Mr. Jones doesn't get his medical treatment, Ms. Smith has to declare bankruptcy and ----ironically---- after years of illegal delays and denials, Mr. Jones might get treated, but he's medically destroyed; Ms. Jones might get a judgement for her financial assistance, but her credit rating is destroyed, her savings and retirement funds have been pillaged, her house and car are gone and her kids have been hungry and have no hope of college. Did I mention that the stress was so bad that her husband left and she attempted suicide?
That is why YOU need to get yourself educated about how the laws affect the injured workers - from THEIR point of view.
The workers second main point is this: There is a huge culture of deliberately ignoring information from injured workers.
Huge sections of the current w/c legislation were crafted by a very crafty insurance lobbyist (do you want her name?) and feature line after line where the law skews away from protecting and assisting the workers and instead directly skews toward protecting and assisting carrier profits.
Over and over I and others have addressed insurance committees which give good old boys plenty of time to jack their jaws and then give injured workers 2 minutes to make their cases and be insulted to boot. Yes, it does happen.
We have been told by a chair of an insurance committee to stop sending email to her because it clogs up her inbox. Guess what industry paid her 6 figures a couple of years previously?
We have tried repeatedly to be part of state-wide commissions and panels that make decisions and recommendations about workers comp. WE CANNOT EVEN GET A SEAT AT THE TABLE. If it were an Indian Affairs committee with no Native peoples' representation or a commission dealing with minority affairs that had no African-American or Hispanic or Asian members, wouldn't that smack of paternalism and lack of representation? It would be unthinkable, wouldn't it?
What if there were opportunities for testimony as the minority commissioners hold hearing throughout the state and minority citizens were told they couldn't speak because they have already said enough. Would you be appalled?
It happens repeatedly to injured workers. YOU can help make it stop.
I urge you to take a look at SB2416 from last session and see what it would take to make a huge difference in the lives of Floridians.
Even you are only one injury away from being in our shoes. And the shoes pinch.
In the words of the old children's song, "Cobbler, cobbler, mend my shoe." I urge you to support legislation that would support injured workers who are trying to become whole again.
Sincerely, Unfortunately anonymous