By: Matthew Hard
The Illinois legislature and Governor Rauner, due in large part to lobbying by insurance companies and other special interest groups, are currently discussing drastic changes to workers’ compensation laws that aim to make recovery more difficult for injured workers. The insurance companies' objective here is simple. The less insurance companies pay in compensation for work related injury claims, the more profit those companies realize. The insurance companies lobby the politicians, and the politicians do the dirty work for the insurance companies. The politicians sell the idea to you as "helping Illinois." Workers' compensation reform will not "help Illinois," it will only serve to help the insurance companies.
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These politicians are helping insurance companies instead of their constituents. Did you elect the your local legislator to protect the interests of an insurance company, or did you elect them to protect your interests? What about your governor?
Did you know that Illinois passed legislation reforming workers’ compensation laws in 2011 that was allegedly designed to cut costs for employers? Since that time, it has been the insurance companies, not employers, who have profited the most from those changes. My question is: What about the employees who are being injured? Who is looking out for their best interests?
Insurance companies are out to protect one thing, and that one thing isn’t you. They are out to protect their bottom line. They seek to profit as much as possible at the expense of injured workers. These companies can afford to spend millions of dollars lobbying politicians to make recovery more difficult for injured workers, because doing so will save them hundreds of millions of dollars in future claims that they will not be required to pay.
To find out more about the 2011 legislation has had on workers’ compensation benefits, and the benefits realized by the insurance companies, you can visit https://www.iltla.com/workers-compensation.