Some Worry Utah Workers’ Comp Bill Will Secretly Impose Martial Law

A bill in the Utah Legislature allows firemen to collect workers’ compensation if they are injured while fighting wildfires in other states, but some Utahns are worried the bill authorizes troops to be called out to lock up residents or impose martial law.

• The panic revolves around a section that references “emergency response teams” that would be authorized to conduct urban searches in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.
• “Defending Utah,” a libertarian group that has trafficked conspiracy theories for several years, produced a video that detailed many of the concerns.
• Lawmakers were forced to address those concerns during Monday’s Senate Business and Labor Committee meeting, but the bill passed unanimously in the Utah House last week and earned a unanimous vote in Tuesday’s hearing.

Salt Lake Tribune

 

Minnesota: Student Employee Charged with Workers’ Comp Fraud

A Minnesota State University student is accused of fraudulently collecting workers’ compensation.

• The 23-year-old Mankato man received over $10,000 in workers’ compensation following a fall while working in a university cafeteria in 2019, according to a court complaint.
• A former supervisor discovered he was working in the college admissions office while continuing to collect benefits on the claim he was unable to work due to his injury, prosecutors charge.

Mankato Free Press

 

Trainer Suspended from Three New York Horse Racing Tracks

The New York Racing Association is gathering facts for a possible administrative hearing that could lead to the suspension of a trainer from participation or stabling at three major New York racetracks.

• The trainer reportedly has a history of sanctions including being fined in Maryland in 2016 for operating his racing stable without workers’ compensation insurance for nearly seven months; it was only after an exercise rider was injured that it was discovered that the workers’ comp policy had been cancelled.

Paulick Report

 

Ohio: DeWine Sees No Need for Additional Transparency in State Medicaid Contracts

Ohio’s Medicaid director apparently held stock in major healthcare companies last year as she negotiated and signed multi-billion-dollar contracts with their subsidiaries, but has refused to say how much she owned as she signed the deals.

• A spokesman for Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, who last week declined to directly answer a question about the matter, says the governor believes Ohio Medicaid Director Maureen Corcoran has complied with the law.
• Lawyers for the Department of Medicaid contended that because Corcoran held stock in the parent corporations while contracting with companies that were down a chain of subsidiaries, she didn’t have a conflict.
• In August, the Medicaid department said it was resuming contract negotiations with Centene, the nation’s largest Medicaid managed-care provider. Just two months earlier, the state’s attorney general announced Centene had agreed to pay Ohio $88 million to settle claims a March lawsuit that Centene’s subsidiaries had bilked Ohio taxpayers out of tens of millions of dollars.

Ohio Capital Journal

 

Michigan’s Reported Workplace Deaths from COVID-19 Dropped Last Year

Michigan saw a significant decline in the number of COVID-19 workplace fatalities last year. After nearly half of the 74 deaths investigated by MIOSHA were attributed to COVID-19 in 2020, the agency recorded eight in 2021.

• In 2020, MIOSHA reported the highest number of workplace deaths in at least a decade with 35 attributed to COVID-19.
• State COVID-19 workplace rules, including daily health screenings, wearing a mask and social distancing, were enforced until June 2021.
• Other workplace fatalities reported last year included employees falling, getting caught in equipment, being hit by a vehicle, getting electrocuted or suffering severe burns.

Mlive