Federalization Of Workers Compensation - Another Opinion

One of the more astute Workers Comp authors/bloggers recently wrote an article on The Federalization of Workers Compensation. I have been writing on this subject for over a year and it is good to see other opinions on what I think will be a major Workers Comp development.

Peter Rousmaniere wrote a great article on the possibility of the Federal Government becoming more involved in Workers Compensation. As the Feds expand their "web of control", I think there will be more monitoring of Workers Comp on a Federal level. Peter's article can be found here.

I was the first one to coin the term Federalization of Workers Compensation. This started a trend of articles on the Federalization issue. I still think the Feds will look to control what happens with Workers Comp. As I have posted before, let's examine what has happened over the last few years. The developments are:

• The CMS (Medicaid/Medicare) wants all Workers Compensation data
• The authority of the FIO or Federal Insurance Office is placed under CMS
• The CMS will be providing the FIO will all pertinent data
• By 2014, we are supposed to have nationalized health care, with national insurance exchanges.
• Most insurance licenses are renewed on a nationalized basis even though they are state-based. The NIPR http://www.nipr.com/ has most state's licenses processing.
• The Internet with such sites as Linked, Jigsaw, ZoomInfo, etc have insurance personnel from all states discussing varied topics. Not long ago, other than intra-company and at conferences, how often did we all communicate with insurance personnel across state lines?

I could list many bullet points, but my goal is to be concise as possible. I am not saying that Workers Comp on a state basis will cease. I think that being very adaptive right now in Workers Comp is the best idea.