From the State Journal-Register
In a speech at the University of Chicago last week, Gov. Bruce Rauner provided what he said was a preview of his upcoming State of the State speech.
Rauner ticked off a list of issues the state must address, including runaway Medicaid costs, what he said are public employee salaries that are too high compared with the private sector, and workers’ compensation reform.
“This is about competitiveness,” Rauner said. “Workers’ compensation is a big issue, especially in manufacturing, construction, transportation. We are in the bottom 10 states. Why can’t we be at least average?”
A study issued last fall by the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services said Illinois ranked seventh in workers’ compensation premium costs. That’s despite a round of changes made in 2011 that the Illinois Department of Insurance said resulted in lower workers’ compensation premiums in the state.
“We don’t have to be the lowest,” Rauner said. “We don’t have to be the best on this issue, but we have to be competitive.”
However, the governor did not outline what he proposes to do to lower those costs.
Still, in a policy paper the Rauner campaign released last summer called the “Jobs and Growth Agenda,” Rauner laid out ideas he was were “common-sense reforms” that should be adopted “to reduce unnecessary cost pressures on job creators while at the same time preserving benefits for workers injured on the job.”
Among those ideas, Rauner said that employers should only be responsible for injuries that occur due to the worker’s employment, that they should not be responsible for injuries a worker suffers while commuting to a job, and that changes should be made to prevent an injured worker from “doctor shopping” to find a more sympathetic physician.