Workers’ Compensation and Unemployment Insurance Reform

Most California business owners have read the headlines heralding the workers’ compensation package approved by the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on April 19, 2004 (SB 899, Poochigian). This reform package reduces the skyrocketing workers’ compensation costs that have hit businesses in recent years. The reform’s main points streamline disability determinations in the following ways: (1) ensuring that disability reports be objective and based on the standards from American Medical Association’s 5th Edition of Impairment Standards; (2) ensuring that employers are only responsible for disability costs associated with the injured employee’s current job; (3) preventing an injured worker from collecting multiple disability awards in excess of 100% of disability; (4) creating a medical network through which employers can realize savings; (5) ensuring medical treatments are consistent with national standards; and (6) aiming to decrease excessive