Workers' comp changes insulting

To the editor:In response to the op-ed article "Workers' comp law benefits employees and employers": Omar Davis, director of the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, demonstrates his misplaced loyalty to the falsehoods which drove the 2005 changes to Missouri's laws that once protected working families. As cheerleader for all that is wrong, he perpetuates the unsupportable claims of those who led the attack on the injured and disabled. Military veterans returning from our nation's war on terror deserve nothing less than our full support instead of the changes that soon may bankrupt protections which encourage employers to hire disabled veterans and older workers.

The law "championed by Gov. Matt Blunt" created a financial crisis for a six-decade program for disabled veterans and older workers. The law cuts off access to coverage for work-related health care and transfers the cost of medical care to the individual, taxpayers, physicians, hospitals or Medicaid. Such policies of avoidance and transference are hardly a ringing endorsement for attracting quality jobs to Missouri and do not promote a healthy pool of workers to meet the demands for a vibrant economy.

Many of those who supported the 2005 legislation which declared the ongoing war on working families and disabled veterans must answer to Missouri voters starting this August. The 2005 laws which Davis characterizes as fair to workers are insulting to these Missourians who must endure the losses from military service and these job related injuries.

JOHN B. BOYD, Lee's Summit, Mo.