Archives 

Show All

  • 2010
  • 2009
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
      • SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT OF DOUGH MAKING
        02/25/09
        Daddy, how was your day at work?

        Great day at the bagel shop, son. I got promoted today. Now I'm the Senior VP of dough making!

        Sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit. But it's not.

        That's an example of what has been going on in a scam some have devise

      • COLLAPSING MEDIA
        02/24/09
        I've always thought the San Francisco Chronicle was an underrated paper.

        True, on workers' comp and labor issues the paper has never been a leading investigatory force. But overall the paper has many strengths. Other than the Sacramento Bee and the LA Times, it has the best cove

      • FLASH: AIG TO POST LARGEST LOSS IN CORPORATE HISTORY
        02/23/09
        Nothing surprises us anymore.

        Special ops forces training and operating in Pakistan? Yes. A nuclear Iran this year? Quite possibly. GM and Chrysler need billions to keep going through the spring? Yup.

        Stress testing? No, it's not for your heart, dummy. It's for your

      • 3
        02/20/09
        Three.

        Workerscompzone recently celebrated its third birthday.

        Doing the blog has been a fun ride for this Tar Heel turned Californian.

        In 2007, when I started blogging, I knew that California already had a number of excellent subscriber-based resources on workers�

      • A CYNICAL VIEW
        02/18/09
        Workers' comp generates a lot of public cynicism.

        Studies showing billions of dollars lost to employer premium and classification fraud fall mostly on deaf ears.

        Taxpayer TARP bailouts for the corporate parents of California comp insurers are in public focus, but not tied

      • EVIDENCE BASED MEDICINE, ROUND 2
        02/16/09
        Here in California we have some experience with "evidence based medicine".

        After all, that was the premise for adoption of medical treatment standards in the California workers' comp system. The initial standards adopted were the "ACOEM guidelines". Those are stil

      • HAPPY AND SAD: THE WEEK THAT WAS
        02/14/09
        The happy and the sad. It was that kind of week.

        It's time for the blog's weekly feature, the week that was.

        If you were an older male voter in Mexico City, you were probably happy this week. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard was giving out Viagra to men over 60, hoping to get a l

      • IT'S ABOUT TIME
        02/11/09
        Labor standards violations have been rampant in California over the past
        few years.

        Scofflaw employers fail to observe labor laws. And many of these either misclassify their employees or don't carry workers comp insurance.

        It's a problem that costs the Californi

      • FLASH: BENSON CASE IS WIN FOR EMPLOYERS & CARRIERS
        02/10/09
        The California First District Court of Appeal released its decision today in Benson v. WCAB (a link to a pdf of the decision is at the bottom of this post).

        Benson is a loss for disabled workers and a big win for employers and carriers.

        The Court of Appeal has affirmed the deci

      • THE STIMULUS AND HEALTHCARE REFORM
        02/10/09
        If you've been reading the blog for some time, you know that I'm monitoring healthcare reform issues. Since so many disabled workers lose their health coverage, comprehensive health reform is a paramount concern for many.

        Washington is consumed with negotiations over the "s

      • ALMARAZ AND THE AMA GUIDES
        02/08/09
        California workers' comp has recently experienced an earthquake-type event, the Almaraz decision.

        Very few observers saw this coming. What is it, and what's the fuss?

        Here's a synopsis that may be helpful for injured workers and individuals interested in workers&

      • KEYNESIAN, LIKE IT OR NOT
        02/07/09
        It's now the week that was.

        Like it or not, come the expected Monday passage of the "stimulus", we're all going to be engaged in a great Keynesian experiment. Whether you think it's larded with pork or an Evel Knievel-style ramp which will boost us over the sloug

      • ALL A -TWITTER
        02/04/09
        The comp community was all a-twitter today.

        The big buzz? Yesterday's en banc decisions in Olgilvie and Almaraz and Guzman (see yesterday's post)

        A sample of comments from sources (applicant attorneys, defense attorneys and judges) I spoke with today:

        ....

      • FLASH: WCAB EN BANC DECISIONS ON REBUTTING 2005 PD SCHEDULE
        02/03/09
        For some time I've been expecting that the WCAB would issue a decision clarifying its position on rebutting the 2005 permanent disability rating schedule.

        In Scott Boughner vs. CompUSA the WCAB had upheld the validity of the 2005 PD schedule (Boughner's counsel has requested the

      • SHREDDING, PART 2
        02/03/09
        More on shredding of the "safety net":

        Cash strapped counties are having problems meeting their safety net obligations......Backlogs in the welfare system that may affect some who run out of unemployment, state disability or workers' comp and are unable to find employment i

      • SHREDDING
        02/02/09
        In life, there's good shredding. Eddie Van Halen on guitar. Some of the licks from The Scorpions or one of your favorite metal bands.

        And there's bad shredding. As in when the societal "safety net" starts to weaken.

        In California the latter seems to be happe

    • January
  • 2008
  • 2007
  • 2006