OCPA: The Time To Fix Workers’ Comp Is Now
By Jonathan Small
Oklahoma’s system for handling workers’ compensation claims is badly in need of reform. So much so that it is time to replace the system altogether.
Our current system makes employers and employees adversaries while impairing the rehabilitation of injured workers, burdening families and placing a heavy drag on Oklahoma’s economy and productivity. Ours is a system where everyone loses: the employers, the taxpayers and, most importantly, the injured workers themelves.
For example, our system devotes more resources to litigation and operation of the system than it does to medical benefits, putting them in worse shape than similarly situated workers in neighboring states and even worse than the national averages for those numbers.
Only one other state, Tennessee, handles claims in an adversarial system like Oklahoma’s, and their governor is leading an effort to replace it.