Governor calls on others to get involved in workers comp reform

Governor Tom Vilsack says it’s time for the people involved – not the politicians – to come up with a solution to the impasse over Iowa’s system of compensating workers who’re hurt on the job. Critics say the system’s out of whack after a court case and republican legislators have insisted that workers comp reform be part of any economic stimulus package that restores the Iowa Values state economic development program.Vilsack says he’s asked lawyers, workers and business people who are involved in the workers comp system to sit down and strike a deal that doesn’t tilt the system too much in favor of labor or of management. Vilsack says he confidant they can come up with a result and when they do he says he’ll support it and he assumes the legislature will as well.Vilsack says he and legislators “shouldn’t be fiddling around” with such a complicated issue since “a word here or a word there” could make a major change in policy. He says if the parties closest to the workers comp system can come up with a compromise, it’s something legislators should support and something he will “definitely support.”