Two Senate bills bypassed the Committee process and could very well make their way to a vote on the Senate floor as early as next week.
SB 2155 is sponsored by Bill Brady (R) Bloomingtion. Brady’s bill proposes to change the causation standard to limit the compensability of claims under the Act. It intends to eliminate the presumption of compensability for firefighters and paramedics for certain diseases, eliminates the free choice of medical attention for the worker unless the condition is life threatening, requires the injured worker to completely waive the physician/patient privilege, and makes numerous other changes, taking the rights of the injured and the physicians who treat them back to the stone age.
SB 1349 is sponsored by Kyle McCarter, (R) Highland and is just as bad for workers injured on the job as Senator Brady’s bill, although Senator McCarter takes a different tack. His bill limits the compensation an injured worker receives for temporary disability, as well as temporary partial disability and permanent disability. God forbid you are seriously injured on the job if this bill gets passed. You will be dumped on the public welfare rolls so quickly, your head would spin. However, in only attacking the injured worker and not the medical providers, this bill will hope to split the medical community’s support from the victims of these injuries on the job.
These bills are not friendly to workers or physicians and medical providers. In fact, these two bills go even further in decimating the rights of injured workers in Illinois!