Details Emerge On New Workers’ Comp Bill
House members make changes to Senate workers comp bill
BY RANDY KREHBIEL World Staff Writer
Friday, April 05, 2013
OKLAHOMA CITY – A House of Representatives rewrite of the Senate’s workers compensation bill makes a lot of changes but leaves in place the basic elements sought by state business leaders.
The House Judiciary Committee’s substitute to Senate Bill 1062 moves the state closer to junking its workers compensation courts in favor of an administrative system and to allowing individual employers to set up their own workers comp plans along the same lines as health insurance benefits.
But the committee substitute also restores some benefits to injured workers and their survivors, provides for a board of appeals and reduces the governor’s control of the three-member commission that would oversee the new system.
Rep. Fred Jordan, R-Jenks, the House Majority Leader and one of the Judiciary Committee members who produced the substitute measure, said he and his colleagues had several concerns about the Senate version.