Judy seems more than a little cynical about how most businessowners feel about their employees. Must’ve had a bad experience herself and for that I’m truly sorry (just like I’d be if she had a troubled childhood).
With the “atttitude” aside, employer directed medical care simply means “if you pay for it, you ought to have at least some say in how it’s spent”. Most employees don’t have carte blanche choice of medical providers under their Group health HMO’s and PPO’s and certainly wouldn’t with any type of public health care. Why shoudn’t doctors who specialize in treating vocational injuries be allowed to do their job, especially when 100% of WC premium is paid by employers? When the employee (or their attorney) has free reign, they can always find a doc who’ll send them home so they can watch Oprah or go to the Casino when they’d probably heal better back at work on light duty. AND STATISTICS SHOW THEY DO!
Back to “screwing” employees, any good businessperson knows that their most valuable and most expensive resource is their human resource. As such they’d be way more likely to let their buildings, machinery or fleet be improperly maintained than to create an unhappy, unhealthy, unsafe, unmotivated, UNPRODUCTIVE work force.
An employer bears ALL the costs of keeping a safe workplace, ALL of the expense of business lost due to a shortage of productive employees, ALL of the cost of training replacements for employees who leave for any reason. It would simply be bad business to “screw” their employees as Judy so eloquently put it.
So, to say ALL employers are out to screw their employees is about as true as saying that ALL empoloyees are lazy and out for a free ride, or all plantiff’s attorneys are out to captialize on our corrupt legal system at ALL OF OUR expense.
Get over yourself, Judy and find one of the 99.9% of employerer who respects their human resources and treats them better than family members, like their most prized business asset. You obviously worked for the .01% who really are jerks but it’s your kind of negative rhetoric that keeps things stirred up.
What this article failed to point out was that the reason the OK Senate ran out of time during the regular session is because on 2 separate occasions, the Democratic senators (supported by the trial lawyers) who opposed “real” WC reform, staged a “walk out”, wasting the taxpayers money and guaranteeing that truly effective reform could not be passed in the regular session.
Re. the rights of the injured worker, what this article also cleverly omitted stating is that EVERY SINGLE STATE THAT BORDERS OKLAHOMA allows employers (who actually pay WC premium) the right to direct medical care as do 25 other states. If this is so “draconian”, why do AR, MO, KS, CO, NM and most recently TX agree that it is a critical component of managed care?
Every plantiff’s attorney who have ever handled WC, knows that if you can’t completely control the medical side of a WC claim, it’s much harder to inflate it.
The watered-down SB is better than nothing but can’t imagine that this will solve the WC problem in OK “once and for all” as the article states.
I have a question. What exactly does it mean for an Employer to direct medical care? Doesn’t it mean he can screw the employee if he wants? And doesn’t the Employer ALWAYS want to screw the employees?
I really have to beg to differ with you Bob. You are right, I have had experience with these things. I was introduced to the world of business politics, lawyers, business Doctors, and legislation in the works at a very young age. In fact, I was a witness to the beginning of WC, as it were. I know how it works. Here in OKC, anyway. Its all payola. Wake up and smell the money, Bob.
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Judy seems more than a little cynical about how most businessowners feel about their employees. Must’ve had a bad experience herself and for that I’m truly sorry (just like I’d be if she had a troubled childhood).
With the “atttitude” aside, employer directed medical care simply means “if you pay for it, you ought to have at least some say in how it’s spent”. Most employees don’t have carte blanche choice of medical providers under their Group health HMO’s and PPO’s and certainly wouldn’t with any type of public health care. Why shoudn’t doctors who specialize in treating vocational injuries be allowed to do their job, especially when 100% of WC premium is paid by employers? When the employee (or their attorney) has free reign, they can always find a doc who’ll send them home so they can watch Oprah or go to the Casino when they’d probably heal better back at work on light duty. AND STATISTICS SHOW THEY DO!
Back to “screwing” employees, any good businessperson knows that their most valuable and most expensive resource is their human resource. As such they’d be way more likely to let their buildings, machinery or fleet be improperly maintained than to create an unhappy, unhealthy, unsafe, unmotivated, UNPRODUCTIVE work force.
An employer bears ALL the costs of keeping a safe workplace, ALL of the expense of business lost due to a shortage of productive employees, ALL of the cost of training replacements for employees who leave for any reason. It would simply be bad business to “screw” their employees as Judy so eloquently put it.
So, to say ALL employers are out to screw their employees is about as true as saying that ALL empoloyees are lazy and out for a free ride, or all plantiff’s attorneys are out to captialize on our corrupt legal system at ALL OF OUR expense.
Get over yourself, Judy and find one of the 99.9% of employerer who respects their human resources and treats them better than family members, like their most prized business asset. You obviously worked for the .01% who really are jerks but it’s your kind of negative rhetoric that keeps things stirred up.
What this article failed to point out was that the reason the OK Senate ran out of time during the regular session is because on 2 separate occasions, the Democratic senators (supported by the trial lawyers) who opposed “real” WC reform, staged a “walk out”, wasting the taxpayers money and guaranteeing that truly effective reform could not be passed in the regular session.
Re. the rights of the injured worker, what this article also cleverly omitted stating is that EVERY SINGLE STATE THAT BORDERS OKLAHOMA allows employers (who actually pay WC premium) the right to direct medical care as do 25 other states. If this is so “draconian”, why do AR, MO, KS, CO, NM and most recently TX agree that it is a critical component of managed care?
Every plantiff’s attorney who have ever handled WC, knows that if you can’t completely control the medical side of a WC claim, it’s much harder to inflate it.
The watered-down SB is better than nothing but can’t imagine that this will solve the WC problem in OK “once and for all” as the article states.
I have a question. What exactly does it mean for an Employer to direct medical care? Doesn’t it mean he can screw the employee if he wants? And doesn’t the Employer ALWAYS want to screw the employees?
I really have to beg to differ with you Bob. You are right, I have had experience with these things. I was introduced to the world of business politics, lawyers, business Doctors, and legislation in the works at a very young age. In fact, I was a witness to the beginning of WC, as it were. I know how it works. Here in OKC, anyway. Its all payola. Wake up and smell the money, Bob.