
Inside Corporate America's Plan to Ditch Workers' Comp - vermontdevil
https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-corporate-americas-plan-to-ditch-workers-comp
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slapshot
Odd, in that worker's comp sets a ceiling on damages, which many companies
prefer. In major workplace injury cases you often see the company arguing that
it's a worker's comp injury and the employee arguing that it's not.

The limits on damages under worker's comp are notoriously low -- for example,
in most states a loss of a finger is a fixed payment of 16 weeks wages. Most
juries would award much higher.

Plaintiffs lawyers (who normally take 33% of settlements) hate worker's comp
because there's no lawsuit -- it's just a paperwork filing with no evidence
required other than that the injury happened at work. It doesn't matter who is
at fault, how the equipment was designed, etc.

This feels like there's another agenda at play that's not well explained in
TFA. It sounds like a bit of a bootleggers and baptists coalition if
plaintiffs' attorneys and companies are both in favor of something.

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Arubis
This leaves me feeling ill.

It strikes me as especially cynical that a push like this would come from the
same bent that objects so strongly to state-sponsored healthcare, but is
perfectly happy to pass the coverage buck to whoever's down the line--be it
insurance or ultimately Medicare/Medicaid.

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hwstar
Binding arbitration: An end-run around the 7th amendment to the us
constitution by the corporates.

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Lancey
As if they even need this. Having worked at a small construction company for a
year, I've seen multiple worker's comp claims denied even when the injury is
our fault. Worker's comp in general is flawed, but this scheme shows that the
United States really don't care what happens to our nation's laborers as long
as the lobbyists are happy.

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hga
No, it shows that federalism is not yet dead. That the principle of 50 Petri
dishes still holds, that Texas and now Oklahoma can try out this experience,
which, as you yourself note, isn't ideal in the old government run model, and
wasn't exactly great in the one time I used it myself.

Am I concerned about this? Yep (we'll ignore that I'm retired by non-workplace
disability and living in Missouri, albeit very, very close to Oklahoma). But I
also believe it might become a better system, with, of course, suitable
government oversight.

ADDED: slapshot pointed out something else in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10394007](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10394007),
this adds another set of players, the plaintiff's bar (which is traditionally
healthy in Texas) and of course the judicial system they're a part of. No
sovereign immunity for the bureaucrats to hide behind.

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gaius
What happens when an Uber or AirBnB "worker" gets injured? That's the
corporate dream, and workers are doing it to themselves!

