North Carolina's business lobby kicked off this year's legislative session with an ambitious to-do list in a Republican-controlled statehouse.
The N.C. Chamber feted its members Tuesday at the N.C. Museum of History in downtown Raleigh with speakers, legislators and hors d' oeuvres.
The group hopes to achieve goals that were out-of-reach in past years when Democrats controlled both houses of the General Assembly.
"It's a new era," said Lew Ebert, the chamber's president and CEO. Ebert said the chamber will be pushing for a pro-growth, pro-jobs agenda.
Topping the chamber's priorities: limiting medical malpractice lawsuits, limiting workers compensation payouts to injured employees, and limiting the cost of complying with state regulations.
Some of the legislation the chamber is seeking is expected to be introduced as early as Wednesday, lawmakers said at the gathering.
The pro-business policies are taking shape against the backdrop of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, a statewide jobless rate of 9.8 percent and a projected state budget shortfall of $3.7 billion.
Two Democrats invited to speak -- House Minority Leader Joe Hackney and sen. Don Vaughan of Guilford County -- warned that the Democrats will fight some of the Republican initiatives.
Republican Senator Phil Berger, the Senate President Pro Tempore, endorsed the chamber's agenda.
"You're going to see significant movement on regulatory reform," said Berger, who represents Guilford and Rockingham counties. "We're looking to freeze most new regulations on business the business community in dollars. We're looking to slow down the regulatory environment in North Carolina."
After the meeting, the chamber's top lobbyist, John McAlister, said the chamber is still working out details on its legislative program and couldn't say how its proposed reforms might look.
But they would almost certainly mean reduced liability for business.
McAlister said that North Carolina has among the highest per capital payouts for workers compensation claims, in part because some workers comp payouts are made for the duration of the injured worker's life.
"It's not supposed to be a retirement program," he said. "In too many instances its' become more of a retirement program instead of taking care of a person until he's ready to go back to work."
John Murawski has been a full-time newspaper reporter since 1991, with stints at Legal Times and The Chronicle of Philanthropy (both in Washington, DC), The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Palm Beach Post (in South Florida) before arriving at the N&O in December 2004. At the N&O he covers energy (nuclear, coal, renewable, efficiency), hydralic fracturing (or "fracking"), public utilities (both electric and natural gas) and health care. His beat includes Progress Energy, PSNC Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, PowerSecure International, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Biogen Idec and others. You can reach him at 919-829-8932 or
Comments
Response to McCallister's Comments...
Tue, 02/08/2011 - 18:19 — hartlawfirmMcCallister says that Worker's Comp is "not supposed to be a retirement program... In too many instances its' become more of a retirement program instead of taking care of a person until he's ready to go back to work."
What McCallister doesn't understand is that it is people that are permanently and totally disabled that receive benefits for life. A permanent and total disability is one where you will never be able to work again.
Who is going to take care of these workers after their Comp benefits are cut off? The taxpayers, that's who.
Why is the legislature intent on shifting the cost of taking care of these permanently disabled workers from the insurance company that has contracted to provide these benefits, (and has received premiums in exchange), to the taxpayers that will have only the burden of picking up the insurance company tab without receiving any additional revenue for their effort?
This is NOT a fiscally responsible action to take...
McCallister's facts are skewed in favor of the insurance company - JesseS got it right in his post.
Some Facts About NC Workers' Comp Law
Mon, 02/07/2011 - 11:03 — JesseSMcAllister is likely being supplied with information from groups such as The Workers Compensation Research Institute.
It should be known that the Workers Compensation Research Institute is funded by insurance companies and large corporations and routinely issues reports that support ‘reforms’ that will increase their contributors’ profits.
In its latest report, WCRI claims the average payment per claim for injured workers in North Carolina is extraordinarily high – higher, it says, than in 15 other major states. That is misleading for a simple reason: in North Carolina, unlike other states, workers’ compensation doesn’t cover many injuries sustained in the normal work routine. We have fewer claims. And they are for more severe injuries. So, naturally, our average payment per claim is higher.
The fair measurement of workers’ compensation costs in North Carolina is straightforward: Are employers’ costs for workers’ compensation insurance out of line with other states? They aren’t. The cost of workers’ compensation insurance in North Carolina is, and has been for years, at or near the national average. For example, four months ago a study by the highly regarded Oregon State Department of Consumer and Business Services reported that North Carolina ranks twenty-third in the nation in the average cost of workers’ compensation insurance.
We do even better in comparison with the states in WCRI’s study. Eight (California, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin) of the sixteen states in the WCRI report have higher costs than North Carolina, and one (Michigan) has identical costs. Each of these states, according to WCRI, pays lower benefits to its injured workers. In other words, in contrast to the other WCRI states, North Carolina delivers good benefits to injured workers, at low cost to employers.
Following the orders of its insurance industry patrons, WCRI misleadingly reports only half the facts, and hides the truth: North Carolina has a workers’ compensation system that is fair to workers and employers.
Shifting the costs to taxpayers: Right now, corporations and insurance companies are lobbying the legislature to cut benefits to injured workers. Under their proposal, even if a worker
is injured on the job and continues to be totally disabled, his or her workers’ compensation will end after 500 weeks. Consider what happens then. Most disabled workers will end up on Social Security, SSI Disability, Medicare, Medicaid or Food Stamps. And the costs insurance companies have been paying – for injured workers’ medical care and lost wages – will be shifted onto taxpayers.
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Additional Key Facts
Claim: Corporations say workers’ compensation rates are costing North Carolina jobs.
Fact: In 9 out of the last 10 years, Site Selection Magazine has ranked North Carolina the best place in the country to do business.
Fact: Even during the recession, North Carolina was 4th in nation in new jobs created over the last 12 months.
Fact: The rate -- set by the Commissioner of Insurance -- that employers pay for workers’ compensation insurance has dropped 21.9% since 1995.
Fact: North Carolina’s workers’ compensation costs are lower than South Carolina’s or Tennessee’s. (They are higher than Virginia’s but we provide substantially better benefits to injured workers.)
Fact: No injured worker can receive workers’ compensation benefits of more than 2/3rd of his or her salary.
Fact: Regardless of the pre-injury wage, the maximum benefit any injured worker can receive for lost wages is $836 per week.
Poll: In October 2010, Public Policy Polling asked registered voters if they favored cutting off benefits to disabled workers after 500 weeks. 66% of the voters said No, while only 14% said Yes. Opposition to a cap on workers’ compensation benefits cuts across both ideological and party lines. It is opposed by Liberals (78%), Moderates (67%) and Conservatives (60%); and by Democrats (72%), Republicans (62%) and Independents (56%).
Cutting benefits is not going to help small business owners, it will not help the taxpayers in NC and it will not do a thing to create jobs in this state.
Anything that support business in positive
Wed, 02/02/2011 - 00:29 — internetmarketd...Lets hope people understand that it is small offline and online businesses like our Internet business that employees people, we provide the very fabric that underpins our society... Big business get the press but it is the small to medium business that is the heartbeat of our countries even more so in smaller countries like mine in Australia with only 20 Mil people total. It will be mom and dad businesses that will help cut back the 3.7 billion dollar budget shortfall so get behind a pro business push!
The usual suapects
Tue, 02/01/2011 - 21:25 — AgentPierceSurely we can count on the usual screeds from the usual screedy bunch here who so despise anything pro-business .... and despise a lot of other stuff too.