FRANKFORT, KY (March 28, 2018)—A revamp of the state’s workers’ compensation system for Kentucky workers injured on the job in the future received final passage in the Kentucky House.
HB 2 was described as providing “a fair system for which workers who are injured will be paid,” by Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester,
when the bill was amended in the Senate last week.
House Bill 2, sponsored by Rep. Adam Koenig, R-Erlanger, passed yesterday on a vote of 55-39. It now goes to the governor to be signed into law.
“These are measures that only make us more competitive,” Koenig said of the provisions in HB 2 as amended in the Senate last week.
HB 2 was filed as a response to a 2017 Kentucky Supreme Court ruling in Parker v. Webster County Coal. That ruling declared unconstitutional the state workers’ compensation system’s practice of terminating workers’ comp income benefits once an injured worker qualifies for normal Social Security retirement benefits.
HB 2 was described as providing “a fair system for which workers who are injured will be paid,” by Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, when the bill was amended in the Senate last week.
Under HB 2, as amended by the Senate, workers’ compensation medical benefits would have to be paid to certain permanently partially disabled workers beyond 15 years if a state administrative law judge deems the benefits medically necessary. The bill would also add to the list of injuries for which benefits must be paid as long as there is a disability, among other provisions.
An additional Senate change agreed to by the House would extend the period for all workers’ comp income benefits to age 70 or four years after the date of the injury, whichever comes last.
Voting against the bill in the House was Rep. Al Gentry, D-Louisville, who said earlier this session that his data on the state’s workers’ comp loss ratios and premiums show the system is doing well.
Gentry, who lost one of his arms in a work accident over two decades ago, said he voted against the bill “because voting ‘yes’ is giving up on my brothers and sisters in the disabled worker community who have been knocked down, have gotten back up and, like me, refuse to quit.”
HB 2 was amended and passed by the Senate on a 23-14 vote last week.
