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By blocking legislation,
senator protects workers

The Star-Bulletin's Feb. 15 editorial was unfair to state Sen. Brian Kanno (D, Kalaeloa-Makakilo). It insinuated that Kanno single-handedly blocked workers' compensation reform and called him a "stooge of labor."

Kanno has never favored bills that are harmful to Hawaii's 700,000-plus working people. The "reform" that the Department of Labor proposed this year would have stripped away many guarantees and rights that injured workers currently have in Hawaii's laws governing workers' compensation.

The proposed bill would have severely limited injured workers' choice of doctor, limited the type of treatment they could receive, restricted vocational rehabilitation options if they need to be retrained and imposed strict guidelines that would take away a doctor's ability to use his best judgment when treating injured workers.

The bill (SB 808) lacked a comprehensive solution to the problem of rising cost of workers' comp premiums. It placed all the blame on medical and rehabilitation costs, while turning a blind eye to the costs of managing the program, adjudicating conflicts, delays in approvals for treatments and delays in returning workers to their jobs. It did nothing about indemnity costs and insurance intervention costs.

Have workers' comp premiums risen because of medical costs alone? Insurance companies have convinced employers that this is so, but according to the National Academy of Social Insurance, workers' comp payments in Hawaii in 2002 (the latest year that total figures are available) rose only 6.3 percent, below the national average of 7.4 percent. Yet premium costs rose 13 percent. What was the reason for a double-digit rise in premiums?

In July 2004, the Work Loss Data Institute gave Hawaii a grade of "F" largely because injured workers stayed out longer than in other states, not because of medical costs. By focusing solely on medical costs, the department failed to investigate the contributions of non-medical costs to our rising premiums.

The problem of rising costs always has more than one cause and more than one solution. The workers' comp reform bill lacked breadth, depth, creativity, overview and substance. The governor, in her State of the State address, promised "a balanced, common sense package of changes" in workers' comp, but SB 808 failed miserably to achieve it.

In preparing the bill, the administration left most of the stakeholders who would be greatly affected by its passage out of its development. Injured workers' groups, unions and health-care provider groups were not consulted or asked to give input.

Kanno gave the administration's bill a full hearing in his committee this year. His decision to defer the bill was based on the weight of overwhelming testimony against it, much of it from the stakeholder groups. This bill showed a critical lack of understanding of the entire workers' comp system.

The Star-Bulletin can call him a stooge of labor, but he is really a protector of workers' rights under the law, and all of us who work for a living can be confident that Kanno is looking out for our interests, even against powerful forces in government.

As chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, he is empowered to preserve the laws that protect our rights, including the right to proper medical care when injured on the job. He might have given greater consideration to a bill that demonstrated a better understanding of the entire problem and offered multilateral solutions without stripping workers of their statutory rights.

Pointing a finger at Kanno is misplaced sentiment by the Star Bulletin. Elected officials are supposed to represent the voice of the people. The people spoke. Kanno listened.

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