Oklahoma Workers Compensation

What will Oklahoma Republicans do for an encore?

Consider that the first Republican Oklahoma Legislature serving with a Republican governor passed tort reform, workers' compensation system reform, public pension reform, state agency consolidation and licensing and permit restructuring. And that's just some of the bills that took effect last month.

These are mainstream GOP agenda items that dovetail with the wish list for business groups such as The State Chamber. For all the pother about how the ideologue caucus would dominate the Republican agenda, these bills represent bedrock conservative issues that have mostly been around since “tea party” was solely a reference to an event in American history, not a modern political movement.

U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore , says the “What do we do now?” question is a legitimate starting place in the script for 2012 and beyond. Cole and Gov. Mary Fallin , both of whom faced tea party-backed candidates in GOP primaries last year, were Republican state lawmakers when Democrats dominated the agenda even when a Republican was in the governor's office.

Cole was secretary of state under Gov. Frank Keating when Fallin was lieutenant governor. Tort reform and workers' comp reform were hot-potato issues then, as they were in the 2011 legislative session. The difference is that Fallin had a Republican-controlled House and Senate. Bills that had simmered on the back burner for 10 or more years got passed.

Keating had to navigate through a Democratic Legislature. Fallin faced a minefield planted by the ideologue caucus, which seemed more than willing to scuttle the mainstream GOP bills if it didn't get its way. Keating successfully campaigned for a right-to-work law, the true old-timer on the Republican script, but that score was settled by the people and not the Legislature. Fallin got pro-business bills passed that were only a dream until this year.

Cole, one of the more astute political analysts of our time, says Democrats will have a hard time reversing the GOP trend in Oklahoma as long as Barack Obama is president. In “The Candidate,” an adviser to Redford's Bill McKay character reminds him that he's the Democratic nominee. “You make it sound like a death sentence!” McKay replies.

Oklahoma Workers' Comp Rates May Be Heading Down | Jerrod ...

Insurance Commissioner John Doak has said the company that manages the nation’s largest database of workers’ compensation insurance information has filed a request with the Oklahoma Insurance Department to decrease the cost of workers’ compensation insurance in Oklahoma.

Doak reported that the National Council on Compensation Insurance Inc. filed to reduce workers’ compensation insurance rates in Oklahoma by 1.7% effective Jan. 1, 2012.

He said the company attributed the rate decrease to this year’s passage of Oklahoma Senate Bill 878.

Reforming Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation law was high on NFIB/Oklahoma’s and Gov. Mary Fallin’s agenda, and S.B. 878 received overwhelming support from both parties in the Legislature.

Prior to passage of S.B. 878, rates were anticipated to rise again.

“Small business has suffered because of an out-of-balance legal system that awards outrageous amounts to plaintiffs and causes legal fees and liability premiums to increase,” said Jerrod Shouse, state director of NFIB/Oklahoma, the state’s leading small-business association.

“S.B. 878 goes a long way toward helping level the playing field for Oklahoma’s small, family businesses,” he said.

Doak said, “Bipartisan passage of SB 878 is beginning to reap rewards for Oklahoma.

After years of suffering nothing but increases to the cost of insuring employees, it appears that many Oklahoma employers can look forward to paying less for workers’ compensation insurance,” he said.

The Oklahoma Insurance Department is reviewing the company’s filing. Approval of the decrease would stem the historic tide of rate increases to workers’ compensation insurance rates.

Oklahoma, The Sooner State

Compensation, theory, evidence, and strategic implications

Compensation

Oklahoma

Oklahoma