Illinois Business Journal Illinois Business Journal
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Illinois State Medical Society optimistic that med mal caps law will be upheld

. Doctors were being driven from Illinois by sky-high insurances rates until the legislature acted in 2005. That medical liability reform law could be overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court next year. Photo courtesy of The Associated Press. . By ALAN J. ORTBALS

   But Michael Gottesman, a professor with the Georgetown University Law Center who represents the plaintiff, Abigail Lebron, disagrees. He agrees that there was a problem but there was no evidence to suggest that exorbitant jury awards were the culprit.
   “It is a constant cry all over the country that plaintiff’s awards in these cases are out of sight,” Gottesman said. “The Rand Corp. has done study after study of this and found that it isn’t true, but that doesn’t stop people from claiming it. By constant repetition they’ve actually implanted in the public mind the belief that jury awards are out of sight. The only thing that is undermining that claim, however, is the fact that the actual data shows it isn’t true.”
   Gottesman says that what really was at fault was that ISMIE had a virtual monopoly on medical malpractice insurance in the state and was reaping large profits. He said that for the five years before the law was enacted, ISMIE’s payouts were flat but its revenues were skyrocketing.
   “What the state really needed was regulation of the insurance companies,” Gottesman said. “But the insurance companies lobbied and said,

'if you want to regulate us,, you ought to do something to the plaintiffs in these lawsuits, too, so put caps on their damages,’ so the legislature did. But what’s curious about it is - as a result of the insurance regulations - the premiums immediately started dropping [continue]

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Closing fraud loopholes would decrease Illinois’ workers’ comp costs
By KERRY L. SMITH

   What specific measures can Illinois take to try to bring its workers’ compensation insurance costs in line with neighboring states?
   Workers’ compensation costs for Illinois employers are higher than any of its bordering states, according to Jay Shattuck, executive director of the Illinois Chamber Employment Law Council. Illinois’ average total cost per claim, he says, is $21,335 - compared to Indiana’s $10,517, Wisconsin’s $11,342, Iowa’s $14,292 and Missouri’s $17,309.

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While most other states - and all neighboring Midwestern states - are experiencing an average decrease of 15 percent in workers’ compensation costs since 2004, Illinois’ rates have increased an average of 14 percent annually over the same period.
“The interesting thing about Illinois, for 2009, based on data from the National Council on Compensation Insurance, is that Illinois is actually experiencing an increase,” Shattuck said. “Most other states are lowering their workers’ compensation costs. The past three or four years, Illinois rates have increased around 14 percent per year, when costs - over that same period - have dropped by 15 percent. So we’re looking at a 29 percent difference, and that’s startling in light of what’s [continue]
 

School districts, companies working to bridge gap between education and employment
By ALAN J. ORTBALS

   School districts across Southwestern Illinois are bringing new focus to vocational education, according to Cindy Garcia, system director of Madison County Career and Technical Education.
   Garcia says that CTE was once the domain of non-college-bound young people, but not anymore.
   “They aren’t the same woodshop classes where you used to build a bird house,” said Garcia. “Now they’re building robots and taking them to robot competitions. They are using half-million-dollar computerized lathes and router machines to be better prepared for industry needs. Vocational education has come a long way.”
   Garcia says the goal of the modern CTE program is to have students graduate with employable skills so that they can make a living wage with a high school education, but also to arm them with academic skills that will enable them to go on to [continue]