Category Archives: Money

Drinks, Dinners, Junkets and Jobs: How The Insurance Industry Courts State Commissioners

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shady-state-politicsToday’s blog post comes from Michael J. Mishak’s article in The Center for Public Integrity, which is located at publicintegrity.org.

The headline says a lot about the article. Though it’s a lengthy read, the article is worth the time it takes to digest it.

Nebraska and Iowa are the two states that we are most concerned with, as that’s where our lawyers are licensed to practice. In addition, these two states are important nationally because many insurance companies have their corporate headquarters in Nebraska and Iowa. I found it very illuminating that there are stories about both states regarding relationships and experiences that government officials who are insurance regulators have with insurance industry executives. Iowa also seems to be a mixed bag, with the same person asking for “more funding to buoy regulators” but at another time, splitting hairs on the state’s definition of lobbying.

I have written on how the “Workers’ Comp Industrial Complex” harms workers, which was based on an expose in ProPublica. It may be time for media coverage that looks into the overlap, favors and cozy ties that insurance companies have with the government regulators who are supposed to hold them accountable.

“The stakes are enormous,” Mishak writes in the CPI article.

“Because Congress has long left regulation of the insurance industry to the states, these little-known regulators, one per state, wield immense power over one of the largest segments of the U.S. economy. Charged chiefly with protecting consumers, commissioners review rate changes, investigate complaints and make sure insurers have enough money to pay claims.”

Consumers who rely on their insurance to protect them need to be able to trust that insurance commissioners with so much power and so little transparency will still have consumers’ best interests at heart, instead of prioritizing the interests of commissions’ friends in the insurance industry.


Who’s Calling the Shots in State Politics?

Drinks, dinners, junkets and jobs: how the insurance industry courts state commissioners

Center probe reveals cozy relationships, revolving doors and shady financial ties

By Michael J. Mishak

When the Arkansas insurance commissioner weighed the merits of a hospital’s billing complaint against United Healthcare, her interactions with one of the nation’s largest health insurers extended far beyond her department’s hearing room.

During months of deliberations, Commissioner Julie Benafield Bowman met repeatedly with United Healthcare lawyers and lobbyists over lunch and drinks at venues such as the Country Club of Little Rock.

“I had a blast with you Monday night,” Benafield emailed United Healthcare lawyer Bill Woodyard, himself a former state insurance commissioner. “Thank you so much for entertaining us.”

Commissioner Benafield ultimately decided the case in United Healthcare’s favor — a 2008 ruling that stood to save the company millions of dollars. Nearly two years later, by the time a judge vacated the commissioner’s orders because there was “an appearance of impropriety in the proceedings,” Benafield had moved on: She was working for United Healthcare, having joined at least three of her predecessors representing insurers in Arkansas.

Read more at The Center for Public Integrity.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Government, Iowa, justice, Money, Nebraska and tagged , , , .

This Is How Americans Spent Their Money in the 1950s

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Today’s post is an article that was shared by Tomasz Stasiuk, a Colorado lawyer, and comes from www.wisebread.com

Every once in a while, this blog gives a person a chance to take a step back and think about both personal priorities and philosophies and what is happening in the larger society and how those trends affect workers and their loved ones in the big picture. This blog post is one of those moments.

Were we, as persons, or we as a society better off “way back when”? As can be seen in the article below, I think it depends on whose “way back when” we’re focusing on.

There were definitely some positives from the article for many: buying power comes to mind. But it is possible that the negatives for others, such as society-sanctioned racial discrimination and limiting women to certain roles, outweigh the perceived positives. In fact, entire books, such as “The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap” are devoted to these issues.

I wish the article below explored worker safety in the decade of the 1950s, too, as I hope, being an idealist, that it has improved overall, both for society and individuals, since then. However, I was very glad to see salary information, as that definitely affects workers and their families or loved ones.

Though at first glance an “average yearly income” of “$3,210 in 1950” and $5,010 in 1959” seems small for a household, it was a different era regarding buying power.

I really do appreciate that prices from the 1950s are translated to today’s dollars, so you can see how both buying power was different and the evolution of consumer culture happened. This includes focusing on housing, autos, televisions, spare time, and discretionary spending.

The biggest takeaway I got from this article was both how much things have changed and also how they sometimes stay the same (and how for some, remembering the good is the only part of an experience they recall).

Society and individuals have a ways to go in eliminating discrimination, focusing on women workers, and improving worker safety. But it is fascinating that a consumer today would mostly understand “how Americans spent their money in the post-war 1950s.”

“That’s because the spending habits we consider normal were born in the post-war 1950s. Prior to that decade, few households could boast discretionary spending, and before television, there were not as many large-scale outlets that allowed advertisers to tempt consumers into unnecessary spending.

“We may no longer consider a 983 square foot house or a car with a rusted-through hole in the floor to be normal, but our expectations for spending discretionary income remain mostly the same.”

So is your household or family unit better off than you would have been “way back when”? And what will productivity, progress and success look like for a worker and family unit or loved ones in 50 years?

Only time will tell.

Americans tend to think of the 1950s as an idyllic time when the babies were booming, the jobs were plentiful, and the country was flourishing.

Our parents and grandparents had good reason to feel prosperous. The average yearly income rose from $3,210 in 1950 to $5,010 in 1959, and post-war Americans were enjoying access to products and services that were scarce during World War II. Finding good uses for disposable income in the 1950s began the American love affair with consumerism. That love affair that continues to this day — although our spending priorities may have changed somewhat over the years.

Here’s how Americans spent their money in the post-war 1950s, and how their spending habits compare to ours in the 2010s.

White Picket Fences

The American dream of owning a home has deep roots the 1950s. Not only were many of the 16 million returning WWII veterans looking to buy homes, but the GI Bill offered them liberal home loans, and the end of the war saw the beginning of the baby boom, all of which drove demand for affordable houses.

Large homebuilders met that demand. They began applying assembly-line methodology to home building — by using panelized construction and drywall rather than wet plaster — which allowed them to create “cookie cutter” tract housing, giving birth to the modern suburb. An amazing “three out of five families became homeowners, and suburban living became a national phenomenon.”

There was a dark side to this housing…

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Money, Unfair employment practices, women and tagged , , , , .

‘Workers’ Comp Industrial Complex’ Cost-Containment Measures Harm Workers

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The National Workers' Compensation and Disability Conference & Expo in November featured a party with an acrobat, Hummer limos and a live alligator named Spike. Another workers' comp conference in August hosted a concert by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. (Clockwise from top left: Michael Grabell/ProPublica, Artemis Emslie via Twitter, Tom Kerr via Twitter, Jamie Gassmann via Twitter)

The National Workers’ Compensation and Disability Conference & Expo in November featured a party with an acrobat, Hummer limos and a live alligator named Spike. Another workers’ comp conference in August hosted a concert by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. (Clockwise from top left: Michael Grabell/ProPublica, Artemis Emslie via Twitter, Tom Kerr via Twitter, Jamie Gassmann via Twitter)

It is the beginning of a new legislative year in the United States. State legislatures will face the latest versions of “reforms” to workers’ compensation laws from business and insurance interests. They will renew their annual claims that the proposals benefit workers while coincidentally lowering or containing costs for employers and insurers. I wish these people would be honest about their real intentions. Cut the **** or to quote Monday Night Football: “COME ON MAN!”

A recent expose on the “workers’ comp industrial complex,” is a must read for all who care about injured workers and their rights. ProPulica author Michael Grabell describes the   “workers’ comp industrial complex” as a loose association of insurance and business groups and cost-containment companies, which are being bought and sold for billions of dollars in profits. Meanwhile, workers and their representatives fight endless legislative battles to prevent more benefits reductions and added obstacles to collecting those benefits. 

“… Over the past two decades, a cottage industry of middlemen has emerged, which some have dubbed the ‘workers’ comp industrial complex.’ Even private equity firms have bought in, seeing profit opportunities in employers’ and insurers’ quest to contain spending.

“The middlemen offer an array of services, from managing claims to negotiating medical bills, all promising to reduce costs — although critics say some actually raise them, as well as the burden on those hurt on the job.”

This ProPublica article shows the HUGE business opportunities some see in workers’ compensation. But these efforts will not help the injured worker, because cost containment means reduced benefits, stalling, denied claims, and working the system to delay, all at the expense of the injured worker and often his or her long-term health.

Respected workers’ compensation commentator David DePaolo, writes a column called “DePaolo’s Work Comp World” at workcompcentral.com, a website that bills itself as “Workers’ Compensation Education, Courses, News and Information.”

One of his recent articles, titled “Stop The Fantasy,” takes the notion of cost containment to task, and he also writes his views on the state of how “the media” cover workers’ compensation.

“Workers’ compensation should not be mysterious, should not be hiding, and should be exposed to the public good or bad, because it is for the public – each and every person that works in this country should be afforded reasonable work injury protection. It’s good social policy. It’s good economic policy.”

This focused quote from DePaolo’s commentary regards the “workers compensation industrial complex” that ProPublica took to task, where DePaolo really questions the need for and philosophy of this part of the workers’ compensation system.

“Cost containment is an apt term if we, as an industry, are willing to accept its definitional reality – that the intent of cost containment is to save money for those who are paying it out,” DePaolo wrote in his article.

“Let’s stop with the fantasy that cost containment is for the benefit of injured workers. It’s not. Otherwise it would be called something else. That cost containment paradoxically results in medical treatment that should cause better outcomes is not the paramount reason for these businesses.

“We all know that – so let’s stop trying to pretend that it is something which it is not.

“If the services are intended to benefit injured workers then there should be a better term for those services that should reflect that beneficial treatment,

“Maybe we’re misunderstood. Maybe our good intentions aren’t appreciated.

“But maybe cost containment really is an accurate term – and at whose expense?” 

Cost containment appears to be both big business and big money, from the extensive ProPublica article. Here are two paragraphs that explain the spoils that people could win or received at just one of the “more than 150 workers’ comp conferences a year.” 

“… For three days in November, hundreds of vendors wooed insurers and employers with lavish after-hours parties, giveaways of designer handbags, photos with Olympic gymnast Kerri Strug, and free rides in orange Hummer limousines. … Vendors gave away Apple watches, bottles of bourbon, and a Vespa scooter. There were free massages and shoeshines, a superhero caricature artist, more than one mentalist, and a live alligator named Spike.”

After all this excitement, the ProPublica article explains how much of workers’ compensation premiums that insurers in California spent on overhead – 36 percent – and how “the amount of money that insurers spend on medical cost containment programs has more than doubled from $197 million in 2005 to $471 million in 2014, according to the state workers’ comp ratings bureau.”

Some people involved in the fancy exposition included the following, quoted from ProPublica.

“There were companies that provide networks of doctors and companies that review medical bills, firms that provide expert medical opinions and firms that specialize in complex claims. There were defense lawyers, data processing firms, rehab facilities, surveillance companies, outside claims shops, occupational medicine clinics, pain management services, translators, schedulers, headhunters and associations promoting other conferences.

“There were labs that test injured workers’ urine for illegal drugs. There were even labs that test urine to ensure workers are taking the prescribed drugs instead of selling them.”

Now, because of the profit potential in “cost containment” (this is a phrase that should make people groan, as I did), “private equity firms have gone on a buying spree,” according to ProPublica, resulting in little-known players outside the workers’ compensation system becoming “powerful players in determining the future of how injured workers are treated.” 

“Increasingly, though, decisions to deny care aren’t being made by workers’ employers or insurers, but by these myriad claims administrators, managed care companies and cost-containment firms. Some industry observers say the firms have added a layer of cold bureaucracy to an already complicated system,” according to the ProPublica article.

I could provide more quotes and details from the articles, but as I wrote initially in this post, both the ProPublica and DePaolo’s articles are essential reading material for those who care about workers, how society treats workers, and who helps workers, especially when they’re injured. Because the system that’s supposed to help those who get hurt at work, workers’ compensation, is often bloated, confusing, and full of those (like folks working in cost containment) whose focus isn’t necessarily to either help injured workers heal, get back to work, or move on with their lives, but muddle the process instead.

We cannot match the resources of the “workers’ comp industrial complex,” but our cause to serve injured workers by getting them the prompt, quality medical treatment they need and deserve is just, and we must keep fighting the good fight!

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Insurance, insurance regulation, Money, Workers' Compensation, Workers' Compensation Reform and tagged , , , , , , .

Worker Safety Should Be Profitable

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A safer workplace can result in cost savings like not being fined by OSHA.

Can a focus on worker safety be more profitable to a company in the long run? I believe it can. 

A safer workplace can result in cost savings like not being fined by OSHA or have to take the time and energy for employees to defend a business against an OSHA investigation. In addition, it makes economic sense to have healthy employees who aren’t injured, resulting in fewer workers’ compensation claims. Workers will also feel more confident in going to work where an employer has a focus on safety instead of having an employer that doesn’t have proper machine guards in place or uses some of the tactics found in this investigation.

OSHA recently reported a news release about a Norfolk, Nebraska, company named MP Global Products, LLP, which allegedly has problems providing a safe workplace.

A tragic workplace incident in March prompted the OSHA investigation when a temporary employee endured his fingers being amputated while working. The investigation itself led to additional safety issues, resulting in “two willful, 22 serious and one other-than-serious safety violations carrying proposed penalties of $244,000,” according to the news release. The company also ended up in the agency’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program as a result of the inspection.

“A Norfolk flooring materials company tried to hide hazardous machines from federal inspectors and threatened to fire employees who complained about unsafe working conditions during an investigation into why a 65-year-old temporary worker suffered the amputation of one finger and severe damage to another when his left hand was caught as he operated a machine. 

U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspectors found the man’s employer, MP Global Products LLC, attempted to conceal an entire production line from them. Inspectors found numerous machines lacked safety guards that exposed workers to amputation injuries on that line and throughout the facility. Workers also told investigators the company threatened to fire those who told inspectors about their safety concerns.”

Here’s another version of the same incident. This time the article was reported on an insurance-industry website.

“MP Global shut down an entire production line, turned the lights off and herded employees into the back room where they were instructed to remain quiet during OSHA’s inspection. This was a willful attempt to prevent inspectors from discovering numerous machine safety violations in the plant,” said Jeff Funke, OSHA’s area director in Omaha. “Knowingly requiring workers to operate unsafe machinery and threatening their jobs for reporting unsafe work practices are illegal and shameful activities. MP Global needs to immediately correct the multiple machine hazards in its facility.”

In this case, a worker’s injury was the catalyst for the OSHA investigation and inspection. Manufacturers may not follow safety protocols to maximize profits, but that profit is often at the worker’s expense, resulting in safety problems and even worker injuries. It is frustrating and just plain wrong when profits are being valued above worker safety, in addition to this example where employers threatened workers’ jobs for wanting a safe environment and reporting concerns.

I hope that this business now understands the importance of a safe workplace that benefits both employees and profits. 

“To ask questions, obtain compliance assistance, file a complaint, or report amputations, eye loss, workplace hospitalizations, fatalities or situations posing imminent danger to workers, the public should call OSHA’s toll-free hotline at 800-321-OSHA (6742) or the agency’s Omaha Area Office at 402-553-0171,” according to the OSHA news release.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in fines, Money, Nebraska, OSHA, U.S. Department of Labor, violations and tagged .

What Money Can’t Buy

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Today’s post comes from guest author Leonard Jernigan, from The Jernigan Law Firm in North Carolina. He writes some incredibly thought-provoking posts that apply to both workers’ compensation and also life in general.

It is often too easy to distill an argument or philosophy down to “us” versus “them.” Unfortunately, this is done frequently in many places and situations. I challenge you to think about where polarization may be appropriate as a means to an end and where it would serve all better to work for the greater good.

Who do you share community with and what are you shared experiences? Based on the amount the average person spends at work over a lifetime (at work but not necessarily at the same job), shared experiences can shape the workplace environment. Those shared experiences also can apply to workplace safety. I encourage both employers and workers to think about creating workplace environments that are both positive and also beneficial to what should be the shared goal of workplace safety.

Michael J. Sandel, a professor of government at Harvard, has written an insightful book called What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (2012) about the “for-sale” sign that applies to almost everything that has value, from sky boxes in football stadiums to police cars in local communities. These days, everything seems to be fair game. For example, a woman allowed her forehead to be tattooed with a brand name for $10,000. Even the tattoo artist tried to talk her out of it.

Are there any moral limits on what corporations can buy, and what the public is willing to sell? Have we entered a great divide where corporate sponsors sit in heated sky boxes while the rest of us shiver during a heavy snow fall at a football game? Are we losing that sense of community of shared experiences?

Sandel summarizes the problem as follows: “Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share in a common life. What matters is that people of different backgrounds and social positions encounter one another, and bump up against one another, in the course of everyday life. This is how we learn to negotiate and abide our differences, and how we come to care for the common good.”

Somewhere along the way we (as a community, state and nation) have to decide whether we will continue to be polarized or whether we will work together for the common good. How we make that decision will determine our fate over the next several decades.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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