AUGUSTA — A Republican initiative to make significant changes to Maine’s workers’ compensation law on Thursday cleared its first hurdle in the House of Representatives. 

The bill, LD 1913, passed, 75-71, amid objections from Democrats that the measure would result in a windfall for insurance companies and strip workers compensation benefits for impaired workers. 

The vote followed early rumblings that a contingent of Republicans would break ranks because the bill went too far. However, the group of lawmakers held the party line by the time the vote took place Thursday afternoon. 

Republicans said the bill created needed reforms to a compensation program that was too generous and subject to abuse.

Democrats countered that the bill repealed provisions enacted in 1993 that led to a 56 percent decline in compensation claims, including a 7 percent reduction in claims last year. 

The bill would prevent most workers from receiving benefits after 10 years regardless of whether the injury prevents the worker from returning to his or her job. The measure also doubles the current impairment threshold, from 12 percent to 25 percent, to receive benefits.  

LD 1913 also would repeal a provision requiring an employer or insurer to pay benefits during an appeal. 

And, it would change the maximum benefit from 80 percent of an employee’s net weekly wages to 66 percent of gross weekly wages.

Rep. Kerri Prescott, R-Topsham, said the changes would bring Maine more in line with workers’ compensation laws in other states. 

Rep. Rob Hunt, D-Buxton, said the bill would hurt people.

“It makes me nervous when insurance companies all line up and say this is a good idea,” Hunt said. “Insurance companies make more money when they pay out less money.”

Rep. Dale Crafts, R-Lisbon Falls, said the bill was needed because it would encourage people to get back to work. He said too many people “look for a way not to work.”

Crafts, paralyzed from the waist down in an accident 29 years ago, said he was tired of watching others receive benefits for less severe injuries. 

“I’m sick and tired of 29 years of looking at supposedly disabled people who can bend over, talk and walk, but don’t go to work. I’ve got no tolerance for them,” he said.

He added, “This bill helps people get back to work. This is a great bill.”

Paul Sighinolfi, executive director of Maine’s Workers’ Compensation Board, told lawmakers on the Labor Committee during an April 4 work session that the bill would affect many people with serious injuries who currently qualify for extended benefits.

“People will slip through the cracks under this proposal,” he said.

The bill was vigorously opposed by labor unions. Don Berry, president of the Maine AFL-CIO, said in a statement that the bill “harms severely injured workers in order to line the pockets of the insurance industry.”

Berry added, “Gov. LePage and his legislative allies did the bidding of the insurance industry today at the expense of Maine working families.”

The bill was scheduled to move to the Senate on Friday, where it faced an uncertain fate.   

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