A ‘sucker play’

The new proposed system that Speaker of the House Frank Chopp is blocking is ridiculous [“Workers’ comp reform should move to a vote,” Opinion, May 8].

The state has no right to use a “sucker play” to save money in a workers’ compensation. There can be only one reason to offer a lump sum buyout and that is because the state knows it will cost more over time to retire a labor-force citizen because of injury.

Where is that person going to turn when the lump sum is gone? Other state-funded services (if they even exist in the future) will pick up the slack. This is a Band-Aid that will hurt Washington labor for years to come and cost more in the long run.

So enjoy your roads, homes, buildings and factories that are constructed and built by labor. Have fun buying your widgets and gadgets at the store because labor has delivered them, possibly built them, and is selling them to you. Then, when the heart and soul of the economy, American labor, gets hurt on the job and can’t work any more, throw them out with the trash.

Can any policy be more oppressive? Yes, actually. You could add insult to injury by linking payments of workers’ comp to Social Security.

— Kelly McQuade, Seattle