A model for reforming workers’ comp

If one thing is clear from the debate over workers’ compensation reform in Illinois, it is that all affected parties believe any problems in the system are caused by someone else.

The insurance industry says it is beset by frivolous claims and doctors who charge too much.

Doctors say the system demands too much of them, and the varying costs of doing business throughout the state make standardizing fees unrealistic.

Labor and workers’ compensation attorneys say that an opportunistic business community is taking advantage of the economic downturn to weaken hard-won protections for the health and safety of working people.

And the business community complains that fraud, insurance costs and other factors are causing their workers’ compensation costs to soar far beyond the standards of most other states.

These are simplifications, of course. The positions of each party intertwine and overlap in complex ways, making it difficult for lawmakers to fashion legislation that addresses problems while guaranteeing protections for workers.

We’ve said in the past that a proposal from Gov. Quinn and a recent failed Senate bill provide outside parameters between which some compromise can surely be found. Now, with less than a week to go in the legislative session, compromise remains elusive, complicated by a process that has listened to all sides but not necessarily involved them.

With that in mind, we’re drawn to consider education reforms worked out just a few weeks ago that won praise from Republicans and Democrats alike for meaningfully addressing long-simmering problems. Those reforms came about through the direct involvement of competing interests in the education community, an approach that seems largely ignored in the workers’ compensation debate. Here, individual interests appear to be lobbying independently but not remotely striving to acknowledge problems with their own positions or to suggest alternatives that could address the complaints of other parties.

Such a strategy can lead only to either stagnation or more bad law.

It is inaccurate and a gross generalization for labor, doctors and others to say that a perfectly fine system is being threatened only by the greed of profit-hungry businesses, and it is equally wrong for business and industry to lay their problems on the backs of mythical malingering workers or money-hungry doctors. With time growing short, we have in education reform at least one model to look to where competing interests reached above stubborn self-interest and worked their way to a solution. All the varied factions affected by workers’ compensation reform — not to mention the lawmakers who must enact it — also should be studying that model.