Your article failed to recognize the malfeasance of employers when they willfully and negligently refuse to access treatment for workers who are injured badly enough they don’t know they are injured. A worker is knocked unconscious, lays there a couple minutes while the employer and other coworkers watch, then comes to and goes back to work, never knowing he was knocked out. Months later, the employee is pressured to resign after trouble staying focused on his work, missing meetings, temper problems, mistakes, falling asleep at his desk, having repeated illness because his immune system cannot handle the stress of a 40-plus hour a week job. The employer has been through this before, and carefully does NOT tell the worker he was out. After the pressured resignation, the employee begins to realize his headaches, goes to the doctor, and learns slowly that he is missing memory. He might get another job based on his prior credentials, only to have more job performance problems he has not experienced before. By the time he understands he was knocked out, the guilty employer refuses to accept the report, saying it was required within four days of the accident, even though the head injury case didn’t know by then.
The only reasons you gave for reduction in paying claims was that workplaces were more safe. You neglected to note the employers who are slick at not providing medical help or benefits.
Those head injury cases end up either getting help at their HMOs (where the general public helps to pay), or Denver General Hospital (where taxpayers subsidize the employer’s malfeasance), or they end up with behavior problems that land them in prison (where taxpayers again pay). OR … they end up homeless because their friends and relatives abandon them because of their anger problems.
OR … their HMOs shuffle them off to psychotherapy and an antidepressant, which seems to work at first, but then causes more complications, particularly increased anger and behavior problems that definitely ruin employability.
The worker’s compensation system betrays workers while assisting employers to shed their responsibility so they can achieve higher profits for their investors.
It’s a sham and a shame, because some of those injured workers lose everything so a crooked employer can make a buck.
People have less confidence in the stock market nowadays because of scandals in which corporations did crooked things to make themselves appear more financially stable. Investors shun those companies.
When Walmart was able to screw its employees, they were great for investors. Once they lose the class action lawsuits, those investment returns weren’t so great.
The costs of corporate malfeasance, particularly in regard to destroying human resources, is high and the public picks up the tab. That is not good business. Colorado should stop trying to attract such corrupt businesses and looking the other way, pretending that any business is good business, like a desperate woman willing to latch on to any man because of her poor self confidence.
Separating costs from those responsible only shifts the burden elsewhere and makes the problem far more expensive.
If we did not have worker’s compensation? If medical help was not tied to a dirty employer’s profits? They would have no reason not to put the injured worker into an ambulance immediately.
Brain injuries receiving immediate medical attention have a high probability today of accomplishing 100 percent rehabilitation.
Brain injuries left untreated for six months lose most of that potential: the worker is stuck with new learning disabilities, anger and behavior problems that isolate them further, reduced employability, abstract thinking problems, financial destruction, etc.
Your worker’s compensation system is corrupt. If it only cares to save employers’ money, then it should be abolished.
Paula Rhoads Hook
Former insurance adjuster made $80,000 in 1996
Formerly tied for “Builder of the Year” when knocked out on the job at U.S. Home in January 2000
No benefits paid yet
Your article failed to recognize the malfeasance of employers when they willfully and negligently refuse to access treatment for workers who are injured badly enough they don’t know they are injured. A worker is knocked unconscious, lays there a couple minutes while the employer and other coworkers watch, then comes to and goes back to work, never knowing he was knocked out. Months later, the employee is pressured to resign after trouble staying focused on his work, missing meetings, temper problems, mistakes, falling asleep at his desk, having repeated illness because his immune system cannot handle the stress of a 40-plus hour a week job. The employer has been through this before, and carefully does NOT tell the worker he was out. After the pressured resignation, the employee begins to realize his headaches, goes to the doctor, and learns slowly that he is missing memory. He might get another job based on his prior credentials, only to have more job performance problems he has not experienced before. By the time he understands he was knocked out, the guilty employer refuses to accept the report, saying it was required within four days of the accident, even though the head injury case didn’t know by then.
The only reasons you gave for reduction in paying claims was that workplaces were more safe. You neglected to note the employers who are slick at not providing medical help or benefits.
Those head injury cases end up either getting help at their HMOs (where the general public helps to pay), or Denver General Hospital (where taxpayers subsidize the employer’s malfeasance), or they end up with behavior problems that land them in prison (where taxpayers again pay). OR … they end up homeless because their friends and relatives abandon them because of their anger problems.
OR … their HMOs shuffle them off to psychotherapy and an antidepressant, which seems to work at first, but then causes more complications, particularly increased anger and behavior problems that definitely ruin employability.
The worker’s compensation system betrays workers while assisting employers to shed their responsibility so they can achieve higher profits for their investors.
It’s a sham and a shame, because some of those injured workers lose everything so a crooked employer can make a buck.
People have less confidence in the stock market nowadays because of scandals in which corporations did crooked things to make themselves appear more financially stable. Investors shun those companies.
When Walmart was able to screw its employees, they were great for investors. Once they lose the class action lawsuits, those investment returns weren’t so great.
The costs of corporate malfeasance, particularly in regard to destroying human resources, is high and the public picks up the tab. That is not good business. Colorado should stop trying to attract such corrupt businesses and looking the other way, pretending that any business is good business, like a desperate woman willing to latch on to any man because of her poor self confidence.
Separating costs from those responsible only shifts the burden elsewhere and makes the problem far more expensive.
If we did not have worker’s compensation? If medical help was not tied to a dirty employer’s profits? They would have no reason not to put the injured worker into an ambulance immediately.
Brain injuries receiving immediate medical attention have a high probability today of accomplishing 100 percent rehabilitation.
Brain injuries left untreated for six months lose most of that potential: the worker is stuck with new learning disabilities, anger and behavior problems that isolate them further, reduced employability, abstract thinking problems, financial destruction, etc.
Your worker’s compensation system is corrupt. If it only cares to save employers’ money, then it should be abolished.
Paula Rhoads Hook
Former insurance adjuster made $80,000 in 1996
Formerly tied for “Builder of the Year” when knocked out on the job at U.S. Home in January 2000
No benefits paid yet