Workers’ comp is working
hree years ago, a fundamental shift occurred in the Oklahoma business community due to the work of the Legislature and the governor passing Senate Bill 1062. This bill created a new way to resolve the claims filed by injured workers, and in doing so eliminated the No. 1 inhibitor of job creation.
In 2013, Oklahoma employers paid more than $1 billion for a workers’ comp system that kept injured workers away from work so long, many were not able to return. Recruitment of manufacturing plants declined because companies knew the old workers’ comp system was bad for their business. Our outcomes were on pace with systems we don’t want to emulate, like California and New York. This was a problem for businesses and the workers they employed. This gap between rising costs and worsening outcomes kept many businesses from expanding and forced some of them out of business. Realizing that costs continued to climb while the system provided negative outcomes for all parties allowed us to shift away from the broken court system of the past.
Since that time, much has been written and many attacks have been lodged against the reforms. This pushback has been based on horror stories about a few cases gone awry, but as a wise newspaper reporter once told me, “the plural of anecdote is not data.” However, these isolated stories don’t reflect the data, which shows that the workers’ comp reforms are working.
Under the new system, we are seeing fewer claims, lower costs and faster resolutions. Since the reforms took effect, we have seen total premiums drop more than $168 million. These savings allow employers to expand the number of workers, or in tough economic times, protect the jobs of current employees.
Now is not the time to let our foot off the gas. We need to ensure we uphold these important reforms and keep fighting against trial lawyers looking to build their own retirement at the cost of injured workers. Every dollar an employer spends on a broken system is a dollar they can’t invest in providing jobs for Oklahoma families. We’re grateful for the success we have seen and continue to fight on the behalf of businesses and working families in our state. n a perfect world, infrastructure — roads, bridges, ports and the like — would remain pristine indefinitely. But this isn’t a perfect world. Infrastructure exposed to heavy use, tough weather conditions, and the eroding effects of corrosion gets beaten and battered. Things fall apart.
U.S. infrastructure is in such bad shape that it gets a dismal D-plus grade overall from the American Society of Civil Engineers. This mark is an embarrassment for a developed nation, but shame is the least of our problems.
Infrastructure issues cost America billions of dollars each year. Deteriorating surface transportation conditions alone are estimated to waste $101 billion in time and fuel annually, and that doesn’t take into consideration other expenses like vehicle damage or the environmental and safety costs associated with traffic congestion.
There’s a big price tag attached to fixing the damage from decades of deferred infrastructure maintenance. The Federal Highway Administration says it will take $170 billion in capital investment per year to “significantly improve conditions and performance.”
It appears that President Trump is ready to make the investment required to get Americans moving more safely and efficiently. He has floated a proposal to “make America’s infrastructure second to none” and to streamline the process for getting the work done by rolling back regulatory hurdles.
Trump’s plan isn’t limited to surface transportation. It extends to energy infrastructure, including pipelines and export facilities. In addition to modernization efforts, he intends to make it easier to approve new projects that will better connect energy producers, including domestic shale operators, to their markets. That will help leverage America’s newfound role as the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas — bringing, as the White House itself noted, “jobs and prosperity to millions of Americans.” In addition, it will enable American energy to reach a world eager to be free from volatile and hostile suppliers.
Investing in modern energy transportation will help us as an energy exporter to reduce the world’s dependence on hostile and volatile producers while assuring our own energy security.
Although the Trump administration has been aggressively encouraging development of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, the president also intends to simplify the process for bringing new pipelines online. Expedience aside, the new administration has been clear that there will be no shortcuts when it comes to safety. Pipelines have long been the safest form of energy transportation. Pipeline companies undertake extraordinary integrity efforts to make sure that product traveling on America’s 2.6 million miles of pipelines make it to their destination without incident.
Trump’s infrastructure plan, which will be largely funded by public-private partnerships, is expected to create 2 million jobs and bolster the American economy. According to analysis by Moody’s, every dollar invested in improving transportation and power grid efficiencies will return $1.44. That’s a rate of return rarely produced by most investments.
President Trump’s proposal will improve the lives of everyone who travels on America’s roads and highways. And by including energy infrastructure in the plan, the president is ensuring that Americans and the world will have unfettered access to energy.