Idaho Insurance

In his best finish loggers pay for a better supply of timber in California, Bruce A. Vincent felt cheated - not by the employee, but by the Montana Division of Workers’ Compensation. ”There was nothing that we could do,’’said Vincent, Business Manager for Vincent Logging Inc. Avec”le cost of Workers’ Compensation Insurance is high enough, we can not compete with neighbouring countries.

In his best finish loggers pay for a better supply of timber in California, Bruce A. Vincent felt cheated - not by the employee, but by the Montana Division of Workers’ Compensation. ”There was nothing that we could do,’’said Vincent, Business Manager for Vincent Logging Inc. Avec”le cost of Workers’ Compensation Insurance is high enough, we can not compete with neighbouring countries. We lose our people.”Other countries interested

Montana, the fourth largest nation by the State with a population of less than Rhode Island’s, is struggling with some of the highest accident rates for workers insurance the USA. Since 1980, the cost of insurance has jumped 126 percent, cutting the size of paychecks, driving some business and forced others to move, the state and the weakening of the state has already depressed the economy.

But the problem is not the only Montana. Other states, including New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana and Maine have troubled systems for the Workers’ Compensation insurance.

”I think you can see, concerns all over the place,’’said John E. Lacy Jr., director of government, industry and consumer affairs for the National Council for the provision of health insurance. ”The losses are coming in greater detail than in previous years.”

This is certainly true, Montana, where the State Workers’ Compensation Fund, which insures more than 80 percent of Montana businesses, we can expect a debt of over $ 140 million this year, from $ 81 million during the last year. And what makes the situation particularly frustrating is that losses are not the result of an increase in injuries, but mismanagement liberal distinctions and abuse judicial officials and State entrepreneurs said.

”I attribute this all a system that has been ignored and awry,’’said Robert J. Robinson, director of the Division of Workers’ Compensation in Helena, the capital of the country. ”The Tribunal has advantages, but nobody responds, until it is a crisis situation.”State Tax Adopted

The crisis eiternde now for about two years, was finally in the spring of this year started, if the state legislature, a law that judicial authority is diminishing, reduce and eliminate a number of benefits to lump sum payments and workers begin to retire the deficit of $ 140 million National, with a payroll tax of three tenths of one percent.

”We are very pleased,’’said Vincent, president of the Lincoln County Workers’ Compensation Action Committee Libby. ”With the old legislation, we paid for a sedan, we could not. All we wanted was an Oldsmobile and now we find ourselves.”

Libby, a small town surrounded by deep forest logging Cabinet Range of the Rocky Mountains in northwestern Montana, was a central point of the Workers’ Compensation debate. Even Montana’s governor, Ted withdrawal was shown here in the past year, riding down Avenue mineral in a skidder, a type of tractor to fetch newspapers in a march to protest Workers’ compensation costs.

Some of our enregistreurs”ne can not afford to continue in business,’’said Eleanor L. Vaughn, a state senator from Libby. ”If you do not have human beings, in newspapers, then you start losing your plate. And if that happens, everything starts to suffer, including your school and your main road of our resellers.” ‘Taking From Under our noses ”

The problem is quite simple. With the law, registration Montana businesses to pay $ 34.39 for Workers’ Compensation premiums for every $ 100 in the breakdown of staff. In Idaho, only 30 kilometres from the value is less than $ 18. And that surround it, Libby is 7500 square kilometres Kootenai National Forest, a region rich in timber larger than the State of Connecticut.