I am a small business owner/operator in the Bluefield, W.Va. area. I provide full-time employment for between six to eight individuals. Like many other businesses that exist in this state, I have experienced the full effect of the WV Worker Compensation system, and I believe the time has come to drastically change the system.
In 2008, I investigated the possibility to maximize my overhead expenditures for insurance. I was providing private health insurance with a small deductible, dental, optical and prescriptions; long-term disability and term life insurance (250-500K). The cost for this benefit came at an annual cost of approximately $32,000. In addition to this, I was required to pay Workers Compensation annual premiums for the same employees, in the amount of approximately $22,000.
Needless to say, these employees would opt to utilize their private health insurance rather than workers compensation, for premium care and benefits.
I discovered a technicality that allowed for corporate officers with benefits equal to or greater than that of workers compensation, to opt out of workers compensation.
Now consider this! If legislation would allow all employers that provide private insurance that meet, or exceed workers compensation limits, the opportunity to opt out. How many more employees would then receive 24/7 private insurance benefits. I submit that many uninsured would become insured by their employers; and most employers would save money while providing a valuable benefit to their employees.
Besides the obvious, why isn’t anyone making this suggestion in the health care debate. I’m sure the worker’s compensation lawyers and doctors would greatly oppose such legislature, but ‘We the People’ should pursue for our own benefit.
Not only would this gain insurance for many uninsured, it would also lower the overhead for many businesses, allowing for capitol investments and growth. This seems to be too simple for the political intellectual and greedy, but don’t it make a lot of ‘common sense?’
Kenneth Hylton Jr.
Bluefield
Letters to the Editor
March 12, 2010
Time is now for workers’ compensation changes
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