Earlier this week, Governing.com’s Better, Faster, Cheaper blog published my new article on the growing interest among states in privatizing their workers compensation insurance programs. A snippet:
…Policymakers under the fiscal gun are beginning to ask a serious question: Why is the state holding on to outdated workers’ compensation insurance businesses when there already exists a robust market of private providers? Successful privatization case studies like that of West Virginia — as well as the forthcoming implementation of SCF Arizona’s privatization — may prompt more states to consider getting government out of the insurance business, both to right-size state government through eliminating non-core activities, as well as to remove unnecessary public-sector competition with the private sector in challenging economic times.
Read the whole thing for more details on Arizona’s current workers comp privatization, an update on evolving privatization debates in Colorado and Oklahoma, and a review of West Virginia’s highly successful initiative earlier this decade.
And for more details on West Virginia’s workers comp privatization, see Reason Foundation’s Annual Privatization Report 2009.