Workers' comp reforms under attack.

• Author: Berry, Chuck
• Position: Guest column

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT BUILDING BLOCKS of a positive state tax and regulatory climate is preserving our workers' compensation system, yet, today, Colorado's workers' comp system faces erosion in the current session of the Colorado General Assembly.

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Colorado, today, has what is generally regarded from an employers' perspective as a good a workers' compensation system in terms of cost, efficiency and fairness to injured workers as could be wrought by lawmakers.

According to an Oregon study, in 2002, Colorado employers paid, on average, the 20th highest workers' compensation premiums in the U.S.--an improvement from 2000 when Colorado employers paid the 14th highest premiums.

Premium-rate indices ranged in 2002 from a low of $1.24 per $100 of payroll in North Dakota to $5.23 in California. The premium-rate index for Colorado was $2.73.

In 2002, according to data from the National Academy of Social Insurance, Colorado also ranked 20th in the nation in terms of the amount of benefits paid per covered worker: $384.10. The state ranked 25th in terms of benefits paid as a percent of covered wages: 1.02 percent.

Our workers' compensation system, however, is under attack in the state legislature this session. Before I discuss this attack, I would first like to review the business-driven reform effort 14 years ago that created today's positive workers' compensation system.

By the late 1980s, Colorado's business community was increasingly crippled by skyrocketing costs of workers' compensation insurance. In 1991, premiums were projected to increase an astronomical 38 percent.

In that year--which was my first session as Speaker of the House of Representatives--the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry and other business groups marshaled through the legislature a major reform of state workers' compensation law that, since then, has saved businesses hundreds of millions of dollars. The omnibus reform bill, SB 218, included provisions that:

* Increased benefits for more seriously injured workers;

* Streamlined the administrative process;

* Contained medical costs; and

* Tightened the definition of "permanent partial disability."

During each legislative session since then, however, CACI has fought to protect the 1991 reforms from attacks that would drive up the costs of the workers' compensation system and, ultimately, the insurance premiums paid by companies.

Although there are several bills that would undermine the 1991...