Editorial: Don’t kill subsequent injury fund

Tuesday, April 24, 2001 | 9:06 a.m.

For nearly three decades now, Nevada state government has had an outstanding program that provides an incentive for employers to hire individuals who either have had a previous injury or are disabled. If an individual who already has a physical impairment gets hurt on the job, the workers' compensation costs from that injury are paid from a subsequent injury fund. The fund is supported by an assessment on all workers' compensation insurers instead of having the existing insurer pay the entire costs of a claim. Despite the success of the fund, some insurers would like to see the program eradicated.

Assemblyman Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, introduced legislation to stop the program this year, but fortunately the bill never made it out of committee in the lower house. But as longtime observers of the Nevada Legislature know, even bills that go nowhere in one house seemingly can have nine lives. In this case, insurance industry lobbyists want to attach Hettrick's failed legislation as an amendment to Assembly Bill 48, which was a routine housekeeping bill dealing with workers' compensation issues that unanimously passed the Assembly and is now in the Senate.

An interim legislative committee that addressed workers' compensation issues last year looked at the subsequent injury fund, but the panel decided not to change it, noting the good it has done for both employers and employees. If an employer's insurer alone had to absorb the costs of a subsequent injury by someone who is disabled, then there would be a disincentive to hire people with physical impairments. The beauty of the existing program is that since it is a fund that all contribute to -- through assessments placed on insurers -- employers then can feel free to do the right thing, which is to hire qualified people even if they have a disability.

The subsequent injury fund -- which is one of those rare government initiatives that has the strong support of both business and labor -- should be left intact. The Senate Commerce and Labor Committee, which currently is reviewing the bill, should reject the insurance industry's misguided amendment. It has been a long struggle by the disabled to get laws passed that are supposed to reduce workplace discrimination; eliminating the subsequent injury fund would make it even more difficult for those with disabilities to get hired by reluctant employers.