"However, the effect of the proposed changes is to drastically
reduce costs to employers and insurers across the board,
regardless of the severity of the injury or degree of recovery."
New York employers,
insurers seek to gut workers’ compensation system
By
Philip Guelpa
17 October 2017
Proposed changes to New York State workers’ compensation
regulations would severely reduce the benefits workers receive for work-related
injuries and illnesses. These changes, developed by the state’s Workers’
Compensation Board, and presented in draft form on September 1, were formulated
in response to a requirement mandated by the State Legislature, at the behest
of employers’ associations and insurance companies, to reform the existing law
with the aim of reducing costs. This directive was included in the 2017 state
budget, passed by the Republican-controlled Senate and Democrat-dominated
Assembly, and signed by Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo.
The new regulations are to be in place by January 1.
The proposed changes include substantial reductions in
payments to
workers who have suffered diminished use of
limbs, increased requirements
placed on workers to prove
reduction in future earnings, restrictions on a
worker’s
ability to obtain an independent medical evaluation of an
injury, and
greater obstacles placed against workers seeking
to contest the level of an
award.
Proponents of the proposed changes contend that medical advances
have rendered the consequences of on the job accidents less severe and,
therefore, that the amount and duration of compensation should be reduced. This
is a specious argument on its face.
Since such medical advances will, of themselves, result in
more-effective recoveries from workplace injuries, the proportion of severely
partially or fully disabled workers will inevitably be reduced, lowering the
overall expense of compensation claims. However, the effect of the proposed
changes is to drastically reduce costs to employers and insurers across the
board, regardless of the severity of the injury or degree of recovery.
Critics charge that the Board’s assessment of reduction of injury
impacts is not based on any objective medical data.
The cost reductions to employers envisioned to result from the new
regulations come on top of a cut of 4.5 percent in insurance premium rates
enacted as part of the 2017 state budget. This is expected to reduce employers’
costs by $400 million this year. The rate reductions are the result of
limitations on disability payments to workers mandated in the budget.
The new draft regulations seek to limit consideration of
particular circumstances that may exacerbate the consequences of an injury on a
worker and his or her family by imposing rigid “objective” criteria for judging
its severity and impact.
The proposed changes would affect low-paid workers most severely,
since the amount of compensation is primarily based on a worker’s existing
wages. Partial or complete loss of the ability to work is devastating to any
worker, but especially to those and their families who are already close to the
margin.
The workers’ compensation law in New York State dates to the early
twentieth century. It was prompted by the tragic 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire
in New York City, which killed 146 garment workers, among the deadliest
industrial disasters in US history. An earlier version had recently been ruled
unconstitutional by state court as an impermissible transfer of wealth from
employers to workers.
Such laws in New York and elsewhere were presented as a
compromise, designed to provide some compensation to workers for devastating
injuries incurred on the job, which were becoming increasingly common and
severe as industrialization advanced and, at the same time, to insulate
employers from occasional large judgements against them.
For years, employers and insurance companies have raised
increasing claims that the existing regulations are too lenient and cost too
much money. In fact, total loss awards in New York State are lower now than in
1996.
A recent editorial in the Albany Times-Union complained that “prohibitively
high Workers Compensation insurance costs” in the state have “long stifled
growth and investment.” As with all such moves to reduce costs to businesses,
proponents claim that the reductions will spur business growth and increase
jobs.
The New York State AFL-CIO has raised toothless objections to the
proposed changes, appealing to the Workers’ Compensation Board to reject the
draft guidelines and prepare new ones less detrimental to workers. Such appeals
will fall on deaf ears.
The proposed changes to New York’s
workers’ compensation system
are part of the
broader social counterrevolution being
carried out by the
capitalist elite, which sees
every social benefit won by the working class
through decades of struggle as an illegitimate
restraint on their ability to realize
maximum
profits. As with the assaults on health care
and retirement benefits,
the attack on
workers’ compensation is another step in the
drive to return
workers to conditions not
seen since the nineteenth century.
WALL STREET TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: DIE YOUNG… your company pension dies with you!
OPOID AND ALCOHOL ADDICTION KILLS OF MIDDLE AMERICA
TO FINISH OFF THE WHITE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS, OBAMA HAD TO GET US ADDICTED AND DRIVEN TO THE SIDELINES BY HIS LA RAZA MEXICANS.
IT WORKED. NOW OBAMA IS WORKING TO UNSEAT TRUMP FOR A THIRD TERM FOR LIFE MUSLIM-STYLE DICTATORSHIP.
"These gigantic revenues and huge personal fortunes were
accumulated by means of what can only be termed a massive
social crime: the flooding of impoverished working-class
neighborhoods with high volumes of opioids, narcotics that
were being prescribed in vast quantities by doctors and
pharmacists and illegal “pain centers” and “pill mills” that
were a constant presence in the affected areas."
Behind the opioid crisis: Republicans and Obama cleared the way for corporate murder
By Patrick Martin
16 October 2017
Leading Republican and Democratic members of Congress and top Obama administration officials collaborated to shut down efforts by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to stem the flow of prescription opioids that have killed 200,000 Americans over the past two decades, according to a devastating exposure published Sunday by the Washington Post and broadcast Sunday night on the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes.”
The joint investigation by the Post and “60 Minutes” made use of extensive whistleblower revelations by former officials of the DEA, which has the main responsibility for halting the flow of illegal narcotics, including prescription drugs like oxycodone and hydrocodone.
Three major companies, all in the top 20 of the
Fortune 500 and hugely profitable, dominate the
distribution of these opioids: McKesson, Cardinal
Health, and AmerisourceBergen, with combined
revenues of more than $450 billion. McKesson
chairman and CEO John Hammergren has the
largest pension fund of any US corporate boss, a
$160 million nest egg.
Fortune 500 and hugely profitable, dominate the
distribution of these opioids: McKesson, Cardinal
Health, and AmerisourceBergen, with combined
revenues of more than $450 billion. McKesson
chairman and CEO John Hammergren has the
largest pension fund of any US corporate boss, a
$160 million nest egg.
These gigantic revenues and huge personal fortunes were accumulated by means of what can only be termed a massive social crime: the flooding of impoverished working-class neighborhoods with high volumes of opioids, narcotics that were being prescribed in vast quantities by doctors and pharmacists and illegal “pain centers” and “pill mills” that were a constant presence in the affected areas.
The consequences have been felt in a historic reversal in the long-term rise of life expectancy in the United States. For middle-aged whites, particularly those living in rural areas, life expectancy is declining and death rates soaring, in large part because of the impact of opioid abuse and addiction.
Appalachia is a center of the opioid crisis. The figures presented in the Post /”60 Minutes” report are staggering—and damning. To Mingo County, West Virginia, an impoverished former mining area on the state border with Kentucky, population 25,000, the mid-sized Ohio-based drug distributor Miami-Luken shipped 11 million doses of oxycodone and hydrocodone in a five-year period: enough to give two pills a week to every man, woman and child in the county.
In the county seat, Williamson, population 2,938, Miami-Luken shipped 258,000 hydrocodone pills in one month to a single pharmacy. The city of Williamson has filed suit against the company and other drug distributors, charging them with deliberately flooding the city with pain pills to supply the black market. A document filed in the suit charges, “Like
sharks circling their prey, multi-billion dollar
companies descended upon Appalachia for
the sole purpose of profiting off of the
prescription drug-fueled feeding frenzy.”
sharks circling their prey, multi-billion dollar
companies descended upon Appalachia for
the sole purpose of profiting off of the
prescription drug-fueled feeding frenzy.”
Post reporters Scott Higham and Lenny Bernstein and “Sixty Minutes” reporter Bill Whitaker conducted dozens of interviews for their exposé, but the principal whistleblower is Joseph T. Rannazzisi, who headed the DEA’s Office of Diversion Control for a decade until he was forced out in 2015.
The Office of Diversion Control oversees the flow of prescription drugs produced by the major US pharmaceutical companies and shipped to hospitals and pharmacies and other prescribers by distributors, including the big three. By targeting unusually large and unexplained sales—for example, several Walgreen’s pharmacies in Florida sold more than one million opioid pills in a year, compared to a nationwide average of 74,000—the DEA unit could force companies to pay substantial fines.
BLOG: NEVER PRISON TIME FOR WALL STREET'S BIGGEST CRIMINALS!
BLOG: NEVER PRISON TIME FOR WALL STREET'S BIGGEST CRIMINALS!
These big three and smaller distributors paid more than $400 million in fines over the last decade as the result of the DEA, but this is a pittance compared to their gross revenues during that same period, well over $5 trillion. One former DEA official told the Post this sum simply represented “a cost of doing business.”
A more serious problem for the industry was the issuance of “freeze” orders, in which the DEA could use its authority to order a distributor to halt a shipment if there is “imminent danger” to the community. According to Rannazzisi, there was increasing resistance from top-level DEA officials, from 2011 on, to approving such “freeze” orders against opioid distributors.
During this period, the drug distributors
hired 46 DEA officials either directly or through law
firms or lobbying groups representing them.
During this period, the drug distributors
hired 46 DEA officials either directly or through law
firms or lobbying groups representing them.
In 2014, industry lobbyists produced a bill, written by a former DEA lawyer, and introduced by Republican Representative Tom Marino, that substantially raised the threshold of proof for a DEA order to halt a shipment. Instead of “imminent danger,” such an order required proof of “a substantial likelihood of an immediate threat,” a standard so strict that, once adopted, there were no further DEA orders to halt drug distribution.
Marino’s bill was initially blocked by DEA opposition, but it was reintroduced with Democratic cosponsors and passed the House of Representatives by a voice vote, without opposition, in April 2015. In October 2015, Rannazzisi was pushed into retirement at the DEA, after previously being removed as head of the Office of Diversion Control by means of heavy pressure from congressional Republicans on the Obama Justice Department. In March 2016, the Senate passed a modified version of the Marino bill, and the House accepted the changes the following month. The DEA was now handcuffed, and the drug distributors could proceed without any concern about federal oversight.
BLOG: WE CAN ALWAYS COUNT ON THE WHORES IN CONGRESS TO SELL US OUT, AND TO SELL US OUT CHEAP!
BLOG: WE CAN ALWAYS COUNT ON THE WHORES IN CONGRESS TO SELL US OUT, AND TO SELL US OUT CHEAP!
As Rannazzisi told “60 Minutes”: “The drug industry—the manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors and chain drugstores—have an influence over Congress that has never been seen before. And these people came in with their influence and their money and got a whole statute changed because they didn't like it.”
The protection of the giant drug distribution companies—amid a nationwide epidemic of drug overdose deaths caused by the products they were distributing—was a bipartisan affair. Congressional Democrats cosponsored the legislation, and a former top Clinton administration official, Jamie Gorelick, was a lead attorney and lobbyist for the distributors.
BLOG: OBAMA PICKED LORETTA LYNCH BECAUSE OF HER LONG HISTORY OF SERVING HIS CRONY CRIMINAL BANKSTERS FROM HER LAW FIRM. THAT IS ALL SHE DID AS ATTORNEY GENERAL. DITTO ERIC HOLDER!
Attorney General Loretta Lynch approved the legislation, and President Obama signed it into law, with the White House issuing a one-page press release to mark the occasion.
BLOG: OBAMA PICKED LORETTA LYNCH BECAUSE OF HER LONG HISTORY OF SERVING HIS CRONY CRIMINAL BANKSTERS FROM HER LAW FIRM. THAT IS ALL SHE DID AS ATTORNEY GENERAL. DITTO ERIC HOLDER!
Attorney General Loretta Lynch approved the legislation, and President Obama signed it into law, with the White House issuing a one-page press release to mark the occasion.
None of those involved, including Lynch and Obama, would comment to the Post or “60 Minutes.” According to the Post, “The DEA and Justice Department have denied or delayed more than a dozen requests filed by The Post and ‘60 Minutes’ under the Freedom of Information Act for public records that might shed additional light on the matter,” indicating that the Trump administration is continuing the stonewalling tactics begun under Obama.
When a “60 Minutes” camera crew came to Marino’s office, his aides called Capitol Hill police to have them removed.
Trump has rewarded the darling of the drug distributors, Representative Marino, by nominating him last month to become the next White House “drug czar,” in charge of coordinating federal efforts against the opioid crisis. Representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, the main cosponsor of the bill, is now favored to be the Republican nominee for US Senate in Tennessee in 2018. Both representatives come from districts ravaged by the opioid crisis. According to the Post account, 106 people have died in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, the largest in Marino’s district, since he first introduced his anti-enforcement legislation.
The following exchange from the “60 Minutes” program sums up the reality of corporate domination of American life, and the catastrophic impact on working people:
BILL WHITAKER: You know the implication of what you're saying, that these big companies knew that they were pumping drugs into American communities that were killing people.
JOE RANNAZZISI: That's not an implication, that's a fact. That's exactly what they did.
… These weren't kids slinging crack on the corner. These were professionals who were doing it. They were just drug dealers in lab coats.
JAMES WALSH
THE OBAMA HISPANICAZATION of AMERICA
JAMES WALSH
THE OBAMA HISPANICAZATION of AMERICA
How the Democrat party surrendered America to Mexico:
“The watchdogs at Judicial Watch discovered documents that reveal how the Obama administration's close coordination with the Mexican government entices Mexicans to hop over the fence and on to the American dole.” Washington Times
OPEN BORDERS:
IT'S ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED AND PASSING ALONG THE ILLEGALS' WELFARE AND CRIME COSTS TO THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS!
“That Washington-imposed policy of mass-immigration floods the market with foreign labor, spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.” ---- NEIL MUNRO
THEY INVADE OVER AND UNDER OUR BORDERS… and do so by invitation of the Democrat Party.
Lawmen are worried that the cartel tunnel builders on the Mexican border are now using their engineered concoctions to smuggle illegals, not merely drugs.
That's what the Daily Caller has found, describing the new anxiety as one was discovered over the weekend, catching about 30 illegals coming in from Mexico and China. MONICA SHOWALTER – AMERICAN THINKER.com
SOARING POVERTY AND DRUG ADDICTION UNDER OBAMA
"These figures present a scathing indictment of the social order that prevails in America, the world’s wealthiest country, whose government proclaims itself to be the globe’s leading democracy. They are just one manifestation of the human toll taken by the vast and all-pervasive inequality and mass poverty.
AMERICA UNRAVELS:
Millions of children go hungry as the super- rich gorge themselves and ILLEGALS SUCK IN BILLIONS IN WELFARE!
"The top 10 percent of Americans now own roughly three-quarters of all household wealth."
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/08/america-unravels-millions-of-children.html
"While telling workers there is “not enough money” for wage increases, or to fund social programs, both parties hailed the recent construction of the U.S.S. Gerald Ford, a massive aircraft carrier that cost $13 billion to build, stuffing the pockets of numerous contractors and war profiteers."
JAMES WALSH
THE OBAMA HISPANICAZATION of AMERICA
How the Democrat party surrendered America to Mexico:
“The watchdogs at Judicial Watch discovered documents that reveal how the Obama administration's close coordination with the Mexican government entices Mexicans to hop over the fence and on to the American dole.” Washington Times
SOARING POVERTY AND DRUG ADDICTION UNDER OBAMA
"These figures present a scathing indictment of the social order that prevails in America, the world’s wealthiest country, whose government proclaims itself to be the globe’s leading democracy. They are just one manifestation of the human toll taken by the vast and all-pervasive inequality and mass poverty.
MEXICO: AMERICA’S DRUG DEALER!
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS to serve the filthy rich
The same period has seen a massive growth of social inequality, with income and wealth concentrated at the very top of American society to an extent not seen since the 1920s.
“This study follows reports released over the past several months documenting rising mortality rates among US workers due to drug addiction and suicide, high rates of infant mortality, an overall leveling off of life expectancy, and a growing gap between the life expectancy of the bottom rung of income earners compared to those at the top.”
THE LA RAZA PLAN: California’s final surrender to fly the Mexican flag within 4 years.
"The American Southwest seems to be slowly returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico without firing a single shot." -- - EXCELSIOR --- national newspaper of Mexico
THE UNIDIOSus MAP OF LA RAZA-OCCUPIED AMERICA
They claim all of North America for Mexico!
(WARNING! THE BELOW LINK IS GRAPHIC ON MEXICAN HATRED OF LEGALS)
Barack Obama created more debt for the middle class than any president in US history, and also had the only huge QE programs: $4.2 Trillion.
OXFAM reported that during Obama’s terms, 95% of the wealth created went to the top 1% of the world’s wealthy.
UNDERWAY: THE OBAMA COUP FOR A THIRD TERM FOR LIFE… for 8 years he laid the groundworks for his Muslim-style dictatorship.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/08/seth-barron-obama-and-building-of.html
“Obama’s new home in Washington has been described as the “nerve center” of the anti-Trump opposition. Former attorney general Eric Holder has said that Obama is “ready to roll” and has aligned himself with the “resistance.” Former high-level Obama campaign staffers now work with a variety of groups organizing direct action against Trump’s initiatives. “Resistance School,” for example, features lectures by former campaign executive Sara El-Amine, author of the Obama Organizing .”
THE OBAMA COUP: IT STARTED IN CHARLOTTESVILLE
"We know that Obama and his inner circle have set up a war room in his D.C.
home to plan and execute resistance to the Trump administration and his legislative
agenda. None of these people care about the American people, or the fact that
Trump won the election because millions of people voted for him."
Patricia McCarthy / AMERICAN THINKER.com
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/08/did-barack-obama-start-charlottesville.html
"Cold War historian Paul Kengor goes deeply into Obama's communist background in an article in American Spectator, "Our First Red Diaper Baby President," and in an excellent Mark Levin interview. Another Kengor article describes the Chicago communists whose younger generation include David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, and Barack Hussein Obama. Add the openly Marxist, pro-communist Ayers, and you have many of the key players who put Obama into power." Karin McQuillan
CBS: Sure, Obama Signed Harmful Opioid Law; But Blame Republicans Instead!
By Scott Whitlock | October 16, 2017 1:17 PM EDT
CBS on Sunday and Monday hammered Republicans in Congress for supporting a law in 2015 that changed how the Department of Drug Enforcement could regulate opioid distribution. The network minimized the fact that the law was signed by Barack Obama (as the opioid crisis grew). On 60 Minutes, Sunday, Obama’s name was mentioned just once.
On Monday, This Morning's Nancy Cordes blamed, “Pennsylvania’s Tom Marino and Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn introduced this bill back in 2015. Well, each of them received significant contributions that year from the pharmaceutical industry, more than $70,000 for Marino. More than $160,000 for Blackburn and $177,000 to Utah Senator Orrin Hatch.”
Allowing the ex-President to divert blame, Cordes spun, “It ended up passing with unanimous consent and signed by President Obama. Former administration officials, some of them now say they didn’t realize how much this one bill would change things.”
Oh, well, if Obama didn’t realize the effect, it doesn’t matter? In the 8am hour, co-host Norah O’Donnell reoriented the blame to the GOP: “Republican member of Congress Tom Marino and Marsha Blackburn promoted it as a way to ensure patients had access to the medication they needed.”
The only other hint of culpability came when co-host Charlie Rose noted that the bill was “approved by Democrats.”
On 60 Minutes, the ONLY mention of Obama came when correspondent Bill Whitaker noted, “A week later, with no objections from Congress or the DEA, President Barack Obama signed it into law, without ceremony or the usual bill signing photo-op.”
The Washington Post, which worked with CBS as a joint investigation, didn’t mention Obama until paragraph ten. Finally, writers Scott Higham and Lenny Bernstein noted the Democrat’s role:
On April 19, Obama signed the bill. The White House issued a one-page news release announcing its enactment.Marino also issued a release taking credit for the legislation.“With this law, our drug enforcement agencies will have the necessary tools to address the issue of prescription drug abuse across the country. I applaud the hard work of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in Congress and President Obama for realizing the importance of this legislation.”Industry groups also thanked Obama.
The Washington Post’s Dan Zak cheered his paper's attack on Congressman Marino, now Donald Trump’s nominee for DEA czar.
If this legislation was ill-advised, than that means that all those who were apart of it are culpable. It passed with no objection through the House and the Senate and was signed by the President. If, as CBS allowed Obama defenders to state, the then-President “didn’t realize” what the bill would do, he was ignorant. Either way, the Democrat should be the subject of some blame too.
[The 60 Minutes segment was sponsored by Buick, Ancestry DNA and Brighthouse Financial.]
A partial transcript is below:
<<< Please support MRC's NewsBusters team with a tax-deductible contribution today. >>>
CBS This Morning
10/16/17
7:05NORAH O’DONNELL: The investigation found the drug industry contributed at least one and a half million to 23 lawmakers who co-sponsored the bill, weakening enforcement laws at the height of the opioid epidemic. Congressman Thomas Marino, the chief advocate for that bill, is now President Trump’s nominee to be federal drug czar. Nancy Cordes is on Capitol Hill with information about the bill and its key sponsors. Nancy, good morning.NANCY CORDES: Good morning. This bill was sold on Capitol Hill as a way to ensure that patients had access to pain medication, but former DEA officials say that it actually stripped their agency to go after suspicious shipments, for example, when one town of 400 people in West Virginia got nine million hydrocodone pills over just two years. Now, as Bill Whitaker mentioned, Pennsylvania’s Tom Marino and Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn introduced this bill back in 2015. Well, each of them received significant contributions that year from the pharmaceutical industry, more than $70,000 for Marino. More than $160,000 for Blackburn and $177,000 to Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, who negotiated the bill with the DEA. It ended up passing with unanimous consent and signed by President Obama. Former administration officials, some of them now say they didn’t realize how much this one bill would change things. We reached out to Marino and Blackburn’s office for comment, they did not respond. Senator Hatch’s office told the Washington Post his office actually collaborated with the DEA and the agency, Charlie, had many opportunities to put the breaks on this....8:02amO’DONNELL: The new law deals with drug distributors, who ship pain pills from manufacturers to drugstores. Republican members of Congress — Republican member of Congress Tom Marino and Marsha Blackburn promoted it as a way to ensure patients had access to the medication they needed.
A newly obtained memo shows that a top Obama legal office interfered with key immigration investigators in deportation cases, bolstering a congressional charge that the government was losing half of those legal cases on purpose, according to an immigration reform group.
The 2013 memo from former Immigration and Customs Enforcement deputy legal adviser Riah Ramlogan required that prosecutors get permission from her office before putting ICE agents on the stand in courtrooms.
"As soon as an Office of the Principal Legal Adviser attorney determines that an ICE officer's or agent's testimony is essential to advancing the DHS position, the attorney must submit a written request outlining the proposed testimony and explaining its significance to the case to the immediate supervisor," the memo said.
According to the Immigration Reform Law Institute, which obtained the memo in a lawsuit and provided it to Secrets, it substantiates congressional fears at the time that the administration was interfering with deportation cases when thousands of illegal immigrants were crossing the border.
"The document confirms what the House Judiciary [Committee] had been hearing for years: that Obama was blocking cooperation between ICE agents and their ICE attorney colleagues in an effort to obstruct our immigration laws," said Dale L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of the institute.
"Revelations like this shed light on just how anti-enforcement the previous administration was," he added.
In December 2014, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte raised multiple questions based on insider tips and a whistleblower lawsuit that ICE was being pressured to endorse the Obama administration's effort to curb legal cases against illegal aliens.
In his letter he said that ICE was "losing nearly half of their cases before immigration judges."
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com
No comments:
Post a Comment