The Washington State Dept of Labor & Industries has done it again: they have announced that IN ADDITION TO their regular annual workman’s compensation premium increases, they will be adding a 19% surcharge next year. The following year they will add ANOTHER 19 percent This is scheduled to go on for the next decade—to replenish their supposedly depleted funds. Make no mistake, every bit of this increase will be passed through to the consumer each and every time they hire a workman or contractor. So it’s really the public that should be outraged.

Over the last decade, workman’s comp premiums have gone up over 65% in Washington state. In neighboring Idaho, they have gone up only 4 percent during that period, and in Oregon, the premiums have actually gone DOWN! So what gives? It is simply that those states have enacted the option of businesses buying private industrial insurance. There is no competition in WA state, and the state-run monopoly program is out of control. Reform of the existing system is just not feasible, and the only real solution is to make Washington a 3-way payer state by allowing businesses to buy private industrial insurance–like 46 of 50 other states do. Until we do that, the taxpayers in WA state will continue to be victimized.