MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
JEFFERSON CITY- Missouri employers can look forward to lawmakers passing legislation they support but Democratic Governor Bob Holden vetoed, according to one of the state's top business leaders.
"We are very confident that we will be successful in getting something through the General Assembly this year, and now we have a governor in Matt Blunt who will sign it into law," said Dan Mehan, president of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Mehan said a liability lawsuit limits bill and restructuring the way the state handles worker compensation will be the first issues addressed when the legislative session begins Jan. 5. Both are issues the Republican governor-elect said he would push during his campaign.
Mehan said in each of the last two years the General Assembly passed what he described as a "decent" liability lawsuit limits bill, only to have Holden veto the bills.
The lawsuit limits bill would have imposed a cap on noneconomic awards in liability lawsuits. It also would have restricted lawyers from "venue shopping" to search for the most sympathetic juries.
Although the measure covers all types of liability lawsuits, proponents have focused their arguments on medical liability lawsuits.
Holden had indicated he might have signed a bill if it lawmakers limited it to medical care.
Mehan said doctors are leaving Missouri because the medical malpractice laws make it unfeasible for doctors to run their practice.
The board that licenses doctors reports the increase in the number of doctors in Missouri has trailed the state's population growth.
The number of doctors practicing in Missouri has increased from 19,500 in 1994 to 19,826 this year, according to the Missouri State Board of Registration for the Healing Arts, a 1.7% increase. However, the population of Missouri from the 1990 census to the 2000 census increased 16%. The board reported this past April the state had 266 fewer physicians than it had one year earlier.
"I think everybody understands that (the problem of doctors leaving Missouri) has gotten worse since April," said Tom Holloway, a lobbyist for the Missouri State Medical Association. The lawsuit awards limits bill, he said, "would stop the bleeding."
In worker compensation restructuring, Mehan said employers would like to "tighten up" what is considered a compensable injury and to revise the way the worker compensation law is written.
Missouri judges are supposed to use a "liberal standard of review" when hearing worker compensation cases, according to state law. Mehan said he would like to see that edited to read judges should use an "impartial" standard of review, something republican legislators have attempted before.
"We think we are in the best position we've been in for years," Mehan, who said he has been talking with Gov.-elect Blunt about these issues, said.
The Republican controlled state government has an opposite effect for laborers in the state, though.
"Historically we haven't had a good rapport with Republicans," said President of the AFL-CIO Hugh McVey.
He said raising minimum wage will be one of his top issues when the next legislative session begins Jan. 5. Minimum wage has been $5.15 per hour since the last time it was raised on Sept. 1, 1997.
"The ball is in their court now," McVey said. "We hope we can work with the Republicans we endorsed. We hope we can work with the governor on issues we can agree on like education and a lot of the things like that that are important to all of us, working families included."
Mehan, the state chamber of commerce president, said he would also push getting more funding to worker training programs and restructuring the foundation formula, the state's funding mechanism for public schools. Mehan said employers got hit "exceptionally hard with tax increases" when the foundation formula was set in 1993.