Mar 4, 2015

Workers Comp Cuts Costing Social Security

     From Linda DePillis writing for the Washington Post's Wonkblog:
There’s a good news/bad news situation for occupational injuries in the United States: Fewer people are getting hurt on the job. But those who do are getting less help. ...
“The cutbacks [in workers compensation] have been so drastic in some places that they virtually guarantee injured workers will plummet into poverty,” write authors Henry Grabell and Howard Berkes. “Workers often battle insurance companies for years to get the surgeries, prescriptions and basic help their doctors recommend.” ...
Somebody ends up paying for those injuries, though: taxpayers. When a worker ends up unable to work because of an injury, he or she can be covered by Social Security Disability Insurance, a program that has steadily increased in cost over the past two decades. The rise has many demographic factors behind it, but it looks like the abdication of responsibility by employers may have played a role as well.

1 comment:

Dina Padilla said...

Totally injured workers after two years, were told to apply for SSDI/Medicare per union contract LANGUAGE and injured worker attorneys. This also was the deal with the union and the SSA for employers STARING IN 1987. The injured received an average of two years temporary disability and the employer's insurance carrier stopped all wage replacement and medical such as it was AFTER the two years of temp disability.What has come as newer data, that the injured workers received SSI, primarily paid by state taxes, rather than SSDI,the federal FICA program no rehab just as in comp, no rehab (REHAB WOULD INDICATE THERE WERE INJURIES BY THE EMPLOYER)and of course no RIB increase after age 62. So, who writes the bills for employers so they do not have to pay their total Worker Compensation disability benefits and with the unions who knew we were injured on the job and as with that the SSA would go along with this, then the SSA would give us SSI, that doesn't come out of FICA from us or the employer? BTW,, THE DOD doesn't pay for their disabled vets benefits or medical care either, the disabled vets should not have to pay for their injuries or illnesses just as injured workers shouldn't have to pay for their injuries or illnesses out of their SSA/Medicare benefits, the benefits they paid for out of their paychecks, and like us injured/ill civilians, they don't get rehab either. So why would congress allow the SSA to pick up the tab for employers workers compensation including the DOD? Why didn't we get rehab in either comp or the SSA or from the DOD?
Why can't we get our benefits from the employer and the SSA only pay on the smaller offset, saving the SSDI for folks injured or ill by other than a worker comp claim!!?