Not much, at least according to a workers’ comp specialist Frank Neuhauser, an U.C. Berkeley professor. In an article published in last month’s Perspectives, the IAIABC journal. Neuhaser argues that workers’ compensation is no longer needed for 90% of America’s employees, as the workplace has become safer. Noting that the occupational injury rate has dropped over the last 25 years. The risks are so low. Further, he makes the case that the medical that would be needed because workers would be covered via their own health insurance.

I certainly find this argument ludicrous and far from compelling. First, according to national data, about 15% of workers do not have health insurance. With the elimination of workers’ comp, it’s difficult to imagine how these injured workers would be able to afford treatment. Such elimination provides an escape from responsibility to provide treatments and indemnity benefits for the injured workers.

Second, eliminating workers’ comp would also eliminate the protection for employees as there is no other recourse. In some cases, such as firefighters in Georgia, they already have trouble in the workers’ compensation system to prove that their cancer is a chronic exposure to fire and hazardous materials in line of their job duty. How can these struggling firefighters have a cause of tort when the workers’ compensation system is eliminated?

Last, the workplace has not become any safer to eliminate the workers’ compensation system. Georgia experiences a steady increase in workers’ compensation claims each year. It has become a billion-dollars industry. A lot of these workers are from low-income jobs. Without workers’ compensation, how would they be able to live? The rise in number of claims proves that at the very least the number of injuries at work is not decreasing to secure an elimination of workers’ compensation system.

So sorry Mr. Neuhauser, the workers’ compensation system is here to stay.