LD 1913, a recently passed bill that restructures Maine's workers compensation l

Randy Billings

Source

Mainebiz

Date

5-14-2012

Pages

1, 6

Abstract

LD 1913, a recently passed bill that restructures Maine's workers compensation laws, was a compromise that has disappointed both labor advocates and the business community. Paul Sighinolfi, executive director of the Maine Workers' Compensation Board and author of the new law, feels that the new regulations will help standardize the process and will give workers an incentive to return to the work force. One key difference between the old and new law is a 10-year cap on benefits for permanently impaired, partially injured workers that replaces the previous threshold that gave 25% of partial-injury claims lifetime benefits and limited the remaining 75% of claims to 10 years. Labor advocates such as Karen Bilodeau, a workers comp attorney at McTeague Higbee in Topsham, believe that the new bill is skewed toward helping insurance companies and will be detrimental to some partially injured workers who might not qualify for lifetime benefits but who will remain significantly impaired. Members of the business community say that some aspects of the bill were weakened in order to win enough support for passage and is not the significant restructuring that they desired.

Full text is not available here. Please contact the Library for a copy of the article.

Share

COinS