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Governor Schwarzenegger Hangs Tough on SB 899
April 19, 2006
During a media event to observe the two-year anniversary of workers' comp reform bill SB 899 Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told a throng of reporters, "I'm delighted that two years ago we reformed the system." In a prepared a media statement the Governor said he "vows to fight efforts to rollback the savings." Asked if the governor is telegraphing that he will veto any workers' comp bill that rolls back the reforms, a high level workers' comp advisor to the governor told Workers' Comp Executive "that’s a pretty bold statement," with an emphatic nodding of the head. The governor said he set out after he was elected to reform the California workers' comp system and enact "not a bogus reform, but a real reform." Citing the most recent figures, Schwarzenegger says rates have gone down 40 percent, 577,000 jobs have been created, and billions in new revenue has been realized thanks to SB 899.
Prior to the governor's event, Voters Injured at Work held its own media conference decrying the cuts in the permanent disability benefits and medical treatment saying that injured workers have been harmed. But the small businesses who flanked the governor say the reforms are helping their employees. "If our employees were not happy, our litigation rate would not have gone down 66 percent. We’re bringing people back to work much faster," says Nancy Axtell of PRIDE Industries. The Governor says his appointees did an "incredible job" with the permanent disability schedule, and says in June his administration plans to go back and look at the reform to see how it’s working. "Some people are getting less because perhaps they were gaming the system before," he says. The point was to fix a broken system and reinvigorate the market. The Governor is right to be delighted. Now he should stick to his guns.