OHIO HOUSE PASSES BILL BLOCKING "ILLEGAL ALIENS" FROM WORKER'S COMP
Ohio House passes bill blocking “illegal aliens” from workers’ comp
A bill blocking undocumented immigrants from filing workers’ compensation claims when they are injured got Ohio House approval today, despite no committee testimony in support of the proposal.
Critics say the bill could actually encourage businesses to hire more undocumented workers, by not adversely impacting their premium payments when those workers get hurt. But supporters, including Rep Larry Householder, argue that current law actually provides incentives for “rogue businesses” to hire undocumented workers without consequence.
“The Ohio Workers First Act is a common-sense plan that puts Ohio workers and Ohio jobs first,” said the Glenford Republican, who is sponsoring the bill with Rep. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati. “It sends the message that Ohio believes in the rule of law and doesn’t support illegal immigration.”
Employer premiums fund the injured worker program, but no business group testified in support of the bill during committee hearings. The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation also is not calling for the change.
A number of groups, including the ACLU of Ohio, Catholic Conference of Ohio, Ohio AFL-CIO, and the Ohio Association for Justice (trial lawyers), oppose the bill.
The Catholic Church opposes illegal immigration and has repeated called for reforms to address the country’s broken immigration system, said Jim Tobin, associate director of the Catholic Conference.
“Yet, once undocumented immigrants are here and working, their human dignity itself should guarantee basic compensation and protections for the work they provide,” he said.
Under House Bill 380, injured workers must certify to the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation that they are authorized to work in this country. If an undocumented worker files a fraudulent claim, it would not be paid.
“We are giving employers a shield for hiring illegal aliens by shifting the responsibility to pay medical bills from employers and the workers’ compensation system to taxpayers,” said Rep. John Boccieri,D-Poland, who opposed the bill in committee.
Injured workers who can’t get workers’ compensation coverage would go to emergency rooms for indigent care, which Boccieri said ispassed on by hospitals to other patients.
Seitz disagreed, arguing that Medicaid, or the worker himself, if he is not indigent, would pay the medical costs.
Tim Burga, president of the Ohio AFL-CIO, said though most play by the rules, if “unscrupulous employers can simply claim they didn’t know the worker was an illegal alien, they will effectively skirt the law, placing the true law-abiding employers at a tremendous business disadvantage and leaving Ohio taxpayer subject to pick up the tab.”
Supporters say the bill is consistent with the fact that Ohio already denies other government benefits to undocumented immigrants. It would require the bureau to verify an injured worker’s legal status, they say, same as is required for unemployment compensation or food stamps.
The Bureau of Workers’ Compensation does not have data related to payments for undocumented workers. Asked if this is an issue, Melissa Vince,bureau spokeswoman, said “it’s difficult to know as we have not had to gather that information in the past regarding the status of injured workers.”
The non-partisan Legislative Service Commission said itcould not estimate the amount of reduced compensation and benefit payments under the bill. In total, there were 88,170 injuries payable from the State Insurance Fund in 2016, with $580 million in medical benefits and $1 billion in lost-time benefits.
A similar measure passed the House earlier this year aspart of the state Bureau of Workers’ Compensation budget, but the Senate removed it before final passage.
The bill passed the House 62-30, with Democrats largely opposed. The bill now goes to the Senate, where it may once again find difficulty passing.
Sen. Jay Hottinger, R-Newark, chairman of the Senate Insurance Committee, says he strongly opposes illegal immigration and wants to see more of a crackdown, but he questions if the bill would accomplish that goal. He notes that enforcement of immigration laws is not the role of the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.
The state doesn’t track when undocumented workers make an injury claim, he said, so there’s no data on whether it’s a big issue or not.
“If an employer is paying a workers’ compensation premiumon (an undocumented worker), that seems to make more sense to have the treatment covered there, as opposed to them going into emergency rooms in indigent care situations,” Hottinger said.
A veteran lawmaker and committee chairman, Hottinger said no group has contacted him to tell him this issue is a problem, or that this bill is a necessary solution.
“In a strange way, while the goal is to crack down on the hiring of illegal immigrants, it could, some argue, have the opposite effect of that,” Hottinger said. “If there is not going to be consequences for them, and it’s no longer going to show up on an employer’s workers’ comp claim, for what I hope would be a very small handful of bad actors, it could have the perverse effect of encouraging the hiring of illegal immigrants.”
http://www.dispatch.com/news/20171205/ohio-house-passes-bill-blocking-illegal-aliens-from-workers-comp
