A recent article from Wisconsin colleague Tom Domer points out that workers’ compensation insurance is required, i.e., mandatory, and not optional in most states for almost all businesses. Nebraska and Iowa make insurance coverage mandatory for employers, too. And it’s not fair or realistic for employers to skimp on covering their employees workers’ comp. That’s one of the ways taxpayers can get stuck with medical bills – when a business cheats its employees and the public by not carrying workers’ compensation insurance.

Companies are trying to cut costs and demand more productivity in these bad economic times. Unfortunately, one way “start up” and other employers are attempting to cut costs is by not insuring their workers under workers’ compensation. It is simply not acceptable to allow these employers to forego this fundamental protection for their employees. We field calls daily from workers whose employers do not have workers’ compensation, who tell their employees to file claims under group insurance policies (which are shrinking) or Medicare or Medicaid. This “cost shifting” to some kind of public assistance is simply not acceptable.

Failing to hold employers accountable for not having workers’ compensation coverage puts workers at risk. It also violates fundamental fairness. It would be like not holding drivers who have basic liability insurance accountable, because uninsured drivers put everyone else on the road at financial risk. Many states (North Carolina, Texas, California, Michigan, to name a few) are undergoing fundamental workers’ compensation “reform” in the name of cost saving. One of those “cost savings” should not be the failure to purchase workers’ compensation for their employees. Every employee in Wisconsin that employs even one person who is paid $500 in a quarter must have workers’ compensation insurance, and any employer who employs at least three employees( regardless of what they are paid) must have workers’ compensation insurance.

It is simply not acceptable to allow these employers to forego this fundamental protection for their employees.

Wisconsin has an “Uninsured Employer’s Fund” for those employees whose employers should have insurance but do not. Although the Fund pursues these scofflaw employers vigorously, many employees fall through the cracks, and we all pay the price through medical expense filtering down to Medicaid, Medicare, Badger Care, or some other public assistance.