Boys and girls, this story is brought to you by the letter "C" which stands for Cymbalta..
This morning I took a trip to the Bay Area to put flowers on my father's grave. He passed away in 2003 at the age of 89
when he wanted dialysis no more, after his kidneys gave out. He made his choice when his quality of life degraded to a
point where life wasn't worth living anymore. While I was in the neighborhood, I went across El Camino Real and found
myself at Cypress Lawn Cemetery and standing in front of the final resting place of former Governor of California and
United States Senator Hiram Johnson.
Next thing I knew, the ground shook. I didn't know if
there was shifting on the San Andreas fault or it was just Governor Johnson turning in his grave to show his displeasure
at how an industry that is totally out of control had bastardized and convoluted his Workers Compensation system into
something that doesn't even resemble a benefits delivery system anymore.
For those of you young folks who don't recognize the name, Hiram Johnson is responsible for 3 things that we see in use
every day in California; the granddaddy to our Workers Compensation system, the ballot initiative and the referendum.
Although Hiram was a Republican, in those days progressive Republicans were like the Democrats of today.
So many of our politicians lose track of the fact that Workers Compensation is supposed to benefit workers who are
injured at work, not to pump up insurance industry profits. Who do you think is the primary stakeholder in this
equation, the injured worker? Not according to the insurance industry. Look at all these fraud committees and steering
committees, not one representative of the injured worker community. I wonder why?
There are so many folks in so many businesses that
feed off of the teats of this mama pig that one loses sight of what it's all about. Instead of simply taking care of the
injuries of the occupationally injured, our legislators seem to spend all of their time figuring out how to take benefits
away from the folks who built this state off of the sweat of their brows and the pain in their backs.
Injured workers are like staplers. When you break one you have 2 choices, fix them or throw them in the trash and get
new ones! What do you think is happening to our highly trained work force when they get injured. "Hey throw them on the
trash heap and get another. Welfare, MediCare and MediCal will take care of them. Why should we," they say. That's the
attitude of the insurance industry as they whittle away the benefits for injured workers that were agreed to way back
almost 100 years ago. Have you seen the insurance companies lose one thing that they were awarded in this historic
compromise? Didn't think so.
Any attempts to right the wrongs of this so-called reform of 2004 are referred to by the Chamber of Commerce and the
insurance industry spin doctors as "Job Killers!" I think what they really mean are "Profit Killers." You wouldn't have
the eight hour day and employer provided medical care if they weren't fought for by the blood and sweat of America's
workers. What is the quality of life like for California's injured workers when they can't get simple medical care for
their injuries, many of which were caused by employer negligence in this age of nonexistent workplace safety.
