MARCH 6, 2015
Dennis Whedbee, 52, of Homer City,
Pennsylvania, lost half of his left arm in a drilling accident in North Dakota
in September 2012. Above, Whedbee shows a photo of himself in front of a safety
sign on a job site after the accident. (Jeff Swensen for ProPublica)
Nearly a year ago, ProPublica set out to investigate the
extent of changes to America’s workers’ compensation system and the impact they
were having on injured workers.
Around the same time, researchers at the federal
Occupational Safety and Health Administration independently decided to do the
same thing.
On Wednesday, to our surprise, we published our story and
OSHA released its report. Both detailed a system decimated by state lawmakers
across the country.
Our investigation, in partnership with NPR, found that since
2003, more than 30 states have cut workers’ comp benefits, created hurdles to
getting medical care or made it harder to qualify. The changes have resulted in
devastating consequences for some of the hundreds of thousands of workers who
suffer serious injuries at work each year.
The reductions in benefits have been driven largely by big
businesses and insurers, which cite out-of-control costs. But we found that
businesses are paying the lowest rates for workers’ comp insurance since the
late 1970s. The costs are being shifted to taxpayers, who shell out an
estimated $30 billion a year in medical costs and lost wages not covered by
workers’ comp.
OSHA’s report echoed several of ProPublica and NPR’s
findings and tied workplace injuries to the national debate over income
inequality. The agency, which investigates workplace accidents, said changes in
workers’ comp programs have made it increasingly difficult for injured workers
to get the benefits they’re entitled to.
The report noted that workers’ comp pays just 20 percent of
the overall financial cost of workplace injuries and illnesses.
“If employers whose workers are being injured had to pay the
true cost of these injuries, these employers would have real incentive to
prevent the injuries from occurring,” OSHA director David Michaels said in an
interview Thursday. “Instead, workers, their families and taxpayers are
subsidizing these dangerous employers.”
OSHA decided to look into the issue, he said, after
investigators witnessed workers and their families struggling to make ends meet
after workplace accidents. In addition, several workers told OSHA during
inspections that they were afraid they’d be fired if they filed workers’ comp
claims for their injuries.
OSHA’s report pointed to two recent studies in the American
Journal of Industrial Medicine that noted that more than half of hospital
patients with work-related amputations in Massachusetts and one-third of those
patients in California didn’t receive workers’ comp benefits.
Even with workers’ compensation benefits, studies show that
injured workers’ incomes are, on average, almost $31,000 lower over 10 years
than if they had not been injured, the report said.
The agency urged states to eliminate roadblocks that prevent
injured workers from getting the medical care and adequate wage-replacement
payments they need.
“It does appear that there is right now a race to the
bottom. State workers’ compensation systems are competing to lower benefits and
make it tougher for workers to get the benefits to which they’re entitled,”
Michaels said. “We think it’s very important for states to ensure that workers
who are injured and made sick on the job get full compensation.”
Source: http://www.propublica.org