One of the reasons the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce opposes bills in the Legislature that would fundamentally alter our state’s workers’ compensation laws is that these bills would externalize certain costs of big businesses related to their injured workers.
So what does that mean?
Simply put it means that these big businesses don’t want to carry insurance to pay for the medical bills and lost wages that result from their employees being legitimately hurt on the job. These big businesses want to cut their expenses (and become more profitable) by transfering the costs of these injured workers onto the rest of us through uncompensated care at hospitals, social security disability payments and other social welfare programs.
There are other examples of big businesses externalizing their business costs onto the public. A good report to read, Freeing the Market: Accounting for the True Cost (and Benefit) of Doing Business, is written by American Sustainable Business Council members Rob Lederer (Management Resources Inc) and Richard Lawton (Triple Ethos).