Reading Room

The problems of old age are worrying and are beginning to influence decision-makers on what to do with two major delivery systems in the United States. Both the Medicare system and the workers’ compensation medical delivery system are now ailing. The fiscal remedy may be their marriage.
 

The FY 2020 Budget proposed eliminating the workers’ compensation reverse offset. The elimination will act as a cost-saving measure and will level the playing field for all workers’ compensation systems throughout the United States

The present economic downturn has been compared to the Great Depression of the 1930s or the recession of the 1980s.

Medical expenses in contested workers’ compensation cases are now a significant and troublesome issue resulting in uncertainty, delay, and potential future liability: the recent NJ Supreme Court decision, University of Mass. Memorial Hospital v. Christodoulou, 180 N.J. 334 (2004) has left the question of how to adjudicate medical benefits that were conditionally paid or paid in error. Presently there is no exclusively defined procedure to determine the allocation and apportionment of primary responsibility for unauthorized medical expenses and reimbursement.

The Social Security/Medicare program had its genesis in President Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" policies. During the succeeding Democratic administrations of Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson, it was developed into the "Great Society" approach, providing a social insurance program intended to operate not as welfare but as earned benefits. With the increasing focus on promptly providing necessary medical treatment to citizens, the Federal government's role of providing conditional payments has expanded at a tremendous cost.

The Federal Government continues to struggle with the need to share data from workers' compensation (WC) programs an effort to reduce payment errors. While both systems benefit injured workers, the United States General Accounting Office (GAO) reported, in a May 2001 study, that the lack of a uniform and consistent method to collect data on a national level has led to irregularities in the delivery of Federal benefits. 

 As the available workforce in the United States continues to decrease to historically low levels, disabled workers are being enticed to enter a trap which may lead them to jail. During the last quarter of 1999, the unemployment rate in the United States averaged 4.1%, creating a huge shortage of employable persons.