GOP lawmakers present workers' comp fix-it plan. (Politics).

WITH workers' compensation costs soaring for California employers, a pair of Republican state legislators has introduced a reform package.

Among the proposals by Assemblymen Keith Richman of Northridge and Ken Maddox of Garden Grove is offering more controls on how physicians evaluate injured workers, reducing administrative paperwork and cutting back on some medical treatment fees at outpatient facilities.

"When I go around and listen to businesses, their number one issue these days is workers' compensation insurance premium hikes," Richman said. "The legislation passed last year alone has added 25 percent to the costs of those premiums. And that legislation contained mostly benefit hikes, not real reforms."

Richman, a practicing physician before entering the Legislature in 2000, said one of the reforms in last year's bill, to establish an outpatient fee schedule for injured workers, requires physicians to do so much paperwork that "it will never get implemented."

The reforms that were enacted last year, such as giving preferences for generic drugs to treat injuries, have yet to be implemented, thanks to budget cuts. But Richman said even those reforms don't attack the real cost-driver: alleged "over-diagnoses" by physicians.

Richman will have a tough time selling his proposed reforms to the Democrat-controlled Legislature. Earlier this month, Assembly-woman Jackie Goldberg, D-Hollywood, said she and her Democratic colleagues realized that workers' comp costs were spiraling, but they weren't prepared to make any additional reforms until the just-passed reforms have been in effect for at least a year.

"We don't even know if those reforms are going to work, and already they are proposing new ones," Goldberg said of the Republicans' attempts.

Labor's Ambitious Agenda

The California Labor Federation has announced its agenda for the upcoming session, looking to capitalize on major victories last year.

Topping labor's list is legislation to require employers to provide health insurance or to pay into a pool so that workers can buy coverage on their own. Included in the legislation would be some as-yet unspecified incentives for employers who provide health coverage for their employees.

CLF Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski said the legislation is designed to stop employers from extracting health care concessions from unions at the bargaining table.

Another high priority bill for labor, introduced last week by Sen. President John Burton, D- San Francisco, is the indexing of the state's minimum wage to the federal cost-of-living index. Similar legislation was stalled last year because of employer and Republican opposition. The California Chamber of Commerce has argued that such indexing would require employers to pay higher wages even as the economy enters a downturn.

Staff reporter Howard Fine can be reached by phone at [phone], ext. 227, or by e-mail at [e-mail].