More On ObamaComp And Federalizing Workers Compensation
I thought it would be best to post after talking with a few of my peers and receiving questions when I coined ObamaComp. The scenario could possibly resemble a monopolistic state fund on a much larger scale. As I have mentioned often, I have not and will not politicize this blog. I am only analyzing past, current, and future trends.
If we have a Federal Insurance Office, or for the purposes of this post, a Federal Workers Compensation Office, the amount of reporting would skyrocket. The state jurisdiction would not just fade away. Much like the current tax system, the State and Federal systems would complement each other. Agents would have to file federal and state forms when they write coverage for an employer.
The positive outcome would be that an agent could place Workers Comp coverage nationally and write coverage in different states in addition to the agent's home state. That would require federal licensing and still require licensing in the agent's home state. Would this cause an enormous amount of red tape and jurisdictional confusion?
Policies would be written for 24 hour coverage. How would an agent or insurance company price this model? What would they require an agent and the employer to submit? Would it possibly be all the medical data on each of their employees? Would that violate HIPAA or would it have to be changed to encompass the new Federal Insurance and Workers Compensation office? Would it feed data back and forth with the Nationalized Health Plan or would the Federal Workers Compensation plan be part of the Nationalized Healthcare Plan? This is already an office in place under the Deparment of Labor called the OWCP, so there is already a national Workers Comp office but without jurisdiction over the states (yet).
Where would the Workers Compensation carriers figure into the model? I will cover that next time. Once again, I am not for or against anything mentioned in this or other posts about ObamaComp. I just want our readers to recognize and be prepared for changes in the current system.
If we have a Federal Insurance Office, or for the purposes of this post, a Federal Workers Compensation Office, the amount of reporting would skyrocket. The state jurisdiction would not just fade away. Much like the current tax system, the State and Federal systems would complement each other. Agents would have to file federal and state forms when they write coverage for an employer.
The positive outcome would be that an agent could place Workers Comp coverage nationally and write coverage in different states in addition to the agent's home state. That would require federal licensing and still require licensing in the agent's home state. Would this cause an enormous amount of red tape and jurisdictional confusion?
Policies would be written for 24 hour coverage. How would an agent or insurance company price this model? What would they require an agent and the employer to submit? Would it possibly be all the medical data on each of their employees? Would that violate HIPAA or would it have to be changed to encompass the new Federal Insurance and Workers Compensation office? Would it feed data back and forth with the Nationalized Health Plan or would the Federal Workers Compensation plan be part of the Nationalized Healthcare Plan? This is already an office in place under the Deparment of Labor called the OWCP, so there is already a national Workers Comp office but without jurisdiction over the states (yet).
Where would the Workers Compensation carriers figure into the model? I will cover that next time. Once again, I am not for or against anything mentioned in this or other posts about ObamaComp. I just want our readers to recognize and be prepared for changes in the current system.
Labels: The ObamaComp Model
posted by James J Moore at 6:54 AM
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