Recent Releases
Police Officers Union and Assemblywoman Sally Lieber Introduce Bill to Increase Local Government W/C Costs By Millions of Dollars
August 17, 2006
Last night Assemblywoman Sally Lieber (Mountain View-D) amended her bill, AB 3026, to exempt local government and local agency public safety officers from all aspects of managed medical care as reformed in SB 228 (Alarcon-D) and SB 899 (Poochigian-R). This bill reinstates the Primary Treating Physician Presumption for medical care, places the burden of proof for Utilization Review upon the employer rather then treating physician, and expands the timeframe for temporary disability from two years to five. These provisions along with several others in the amended bill are estimated to cost the County of Los Angeles between $10 and $20 Million dollars and other local agencies can expect to see an almost 20% increase in their workers’ compensation costs.
CCWC has joined its public agency partners including the California State Association of Counties, League of California Cities, Regional Council of Rural Counties, and the California Association of Joint Powers Authorities in a letter of opposition to this amended legislation. CCWC strongly urges each of our members, public and private to contact your local State Senator and ask that they vote NO on this measure should it come up for a vote on the floor of the Senate. You can locate the name and contact information for your State Senator by visiting www.senate.ca.gov.
For a copy of the Coalition letter in opposition to AB 3026 as amended, please click HERE. Please click HERE for a copy of the most recent version of the legislation.