Is Workers' Compensation Insurance Necessary?

Workers' compensation insurance evolved with the goal of providing an expedious administrative no-fault proceeding in lieu of third party liability to care for injured workers. It has been a flaming failure. Workers' compensation insurers fight these claims as vigorously as traditional third party claims; delay investigations; stonewall the payment of wage replacement and the payment of medical bills and the level of payment once achieved is paltry. That says nothing about the snail's pace that the administrative proceedings crawl at the trial level where formal evidentiary hearing may last over the course of months if not years only to be trumped by a one year delay in reaching an appeal before the Compensation Review Board, followed by a lengthy appeal to the courts. Why?

Massachusetts recently enacted a bold new plan to provide medical insurance for its unisured population. What if there was universal health coverage? What if there was a law that an injured employee would be entitled to salary continuation during recuperation? What if we did away with an inefficient and uneconomic administrative system based upon no-fault thus saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary and other administrative costs? Why should my assistant be paid for her injuries if she trips over a waste basket that she left in an unsafe location but I cannot be sued by her ( I have insurance) if she is injured by an unsafe work condition that I created?

Why are there two insurance systems rather than one? One system administers workers' compensation and the second administers liability claims? Why are there two sets of lawyers? One set handles workers' compensation claims and one set handles liability claims?

Why are there three types of insurance? Medical insurance, workers' compensation insurnace and liability insurance?

There formerly was a time that it took so long to have a third party claim adjudicated that it made sense to have a quick and expedient system in its place? That reasoning no longer exists. The judicial system is a blessing now - it moves so swiftly?

And wouldn't workers be safer if work places were safer and employers could be held accountable in money damages if negligence caused a worker to be injured?

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