Mohave Daily News: Business

PHOENIX (AP) - Fears about opening the door to lawsuits against employers and a tug of war between business groups and health-care providers have prompted lawmakers to abandon a push to deny worker's compensation benefits to those injured on the job because of their alcohol or drug use.

With more questions than answers, legislators on Wednesday threw up their hands on the issue a month after a proposed constitutional amendment and a bill to implement it were passed by the House.

Saying they wanted to shore up policies against substance abuse, business groups sought the legislation after the state Supreme Court last year overturned a 1999 law promoting drug-free workplaces by restricting benefits to substance-impaired workers.

The ruling said the law clashed with the Arizona Constitution's mandate for payment of benefits for on-the-job injuries without consideration of fault.

Already opposed by advocates for workers, the legislation ran into more opposition when groups representing health-care providers objected that physicians and hospitals could be left without compensation for care for injured workers later determined to have been impaired.

The inability to work out a compromise on that issue resulted in Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Barbara Leff, R-Paradise Valley, pulling the implementation bill from her committee's agenda Wednesday.

Then, Republican Rep. John McComish of Phoenix had the Senate committee drop his resolution to ask voters to amend the Arizona Constitution to let lawmakers restrict workers' compensation coverage.

That, it turned out, had the potential to create the ‘‘unintended consequence'' of allowing injured workers to sue their employers if denied coverage on the basis of alleged impairment, McComish said.

‘‘For this session, the issue appears dead,'' McComish said, adding that he hopes lawmakers and advocates can work something out in the future.

Business groups had objected to a change made to the implementation bill so that health-care providers would be paid until notified that a worker's claim had been denied.

Jason Bezozo, a lobbyist for the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association, said that change was sought to prevent providers from going unpaid.

‘‘If you have a few of these trauma cases, you'd be on the hook for uncompensated care,'' he said. ‘‘We thought it was a fair balance.''

The Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry objected to the change because it would set the precedent of requiring payouts on denied claims, said Scott Peterson, senior vice president.

Peterson said business groups suggested that the state use tax dollars to create a $500,000 special fund to pay for care in denied claims, but Bezozo said providers shouldn't have to lobby the Legislature every year for appropriations.