Wish list for new governor -Businesses Weigh In

Mercury News

Arnold Schwarzenegger built his campaign around the need to make California more attractive to business.

Now, the business community has some very specific suggestions for the governor-elect -- on issues ranging from worker's compensation to health insurance.

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• Worker's compensation reform. Although Gov. Gray Davis recently signed legislation designed to cut costs, critics -- including Schwarzenegger -- say it's not sufficient.

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• Health insurance. Now that Davis has signed SB 2, the bill mandating that medium and large employers provide health insurance for workers, Schwarzenegger would have to ask either the legislature or the voters to repeal it if he didn't want it to go into effect. Although Schwarzenegger said Thursday that he thinks the bill imposes too many costs on businesses, he declined to say if he would work to repeal it.

• Overtime pay. California law requires overtime pay after eight hours in a day rather than 40 hours in a week. Changing this would require legislative action.

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• Insurance costs. Businesses would like to see reforms that would lead to lower insurance premiums, including making it more difficult to file class action lawsuits against them in California.

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/6980371.htm

soon.

Workman's comp. My cousin is a lawyer who works for a workman's comp firm. Ironically he is probably the most right wing person in my large family but works for a very liberal firm. He says the problem isn't fraud or high claims but doctors who extend treatment way more than is necessary. He says the standing joke among doctors handling workman's comp. is that if you're not clearing $1 million a year something is wrong with you. I was quite surprised because the normal right wing mantra is fraud & payouts to injured workers are too high. It's the rich country club Republican doctors ripping off the system.

Health Insurance - the new law is admirable in intent but there is no doubt it will cause more businesses to leave California which we don't need right now. They need to reign in insurance costs first instead of dumping the burden on small businesses.

I'm dead against the overtime changes as well as making it more difficult to file class action lawsuits. That's the convenient excuse used by insurance companies to raise rates.

The good news is California still has large Democrat majorities in both houses so nothing will pass easily if at all.