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Union bias doomed
workers’ comp reform

THE ISSUE A bill to reform Hawaii's workers' compensation system has been shelved by a Senate committee.

WORKERS' compensation reform appears to have been pushed aside in the Legislature, again put on the shelf by Sen. Brian Kanno, chairman of the Senate Labor Committee and reliable stooge of organized labor. Kanno has blocked reform of the system for a full decade and has let it be known that needed changes will not be made as long as he heads the committee. He should be removed from that position.

Hawaii's workers' compensation costs are among the highest in the country, costing $3.73 per $100 of payroll last year. That was up from $3.48 in 2002, third only to California and Florida, whose legislatures responded to the rating by enacting remedial legislation.

Six months ago, the Work Loss Data Institute gave Hawaii an "F" for its workers' comp system, pointing out an unusually high percentage of injured workers staying off the job more than a month. Another study showed Hawaii employers paid more in lost wages to injured workers than on their medical care.

The key ingredient of the reform proposed by Governor Lingle would allow a company to provide an injured or ailing employee with a list of at least three employer-designated physicians from whom to choose for treatment. The employee now is allowed to reject the employer's choice of physician and instead choose another doctor, a system that is subject to abuse; a friendly doctor's generous diagnosis allows the employee to obtain workers' comp benefits.

Kanno's committee not only shelved the Lingle proposal again but advanced a bill that would prevent the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations from adopting new rules intended to make the system more efficient within its legal framework. Kanno maintains that the proposed administrative rules were an attempt by Lingle "to go around the legislative process."

State Labor Director Nelson Befitel points out that Kanno's proposal would restore the department's rule-making power in 2011, the year that would follow her second term, if there is one. "Since 1963 they gave the director authority to promulgate rules," Befitel says, "and suspiciously they're taking it away."

Kanno obstructed reforms of workers' comp long before Lingle became governor. In 1996, he avoided contact with a reform coalition; his aides told visitors he wasn't available but was seen sneaking into his office. A year later, he was more upfront in simply blocking three reform bills without so much as holding a hearing.

Kanno held a hearing in last year's legislative session but limited testimony to five minutes. The Makakilo Democrat has made it clear every year that proponents of workers' comp reform are wasting their time. That will be the case while Kanno is chairman of the committee.