© Dylan Hollingsworth for ProPublicaAfter truck driver Joe Becker herniated discs in his back on the job, his employer, Dent Truck Lines, paid for surgery. But when he needed a second operation to remove screws causing him pain, Dent refused to pay, saying it was past the two-year time limit. Becker, who lives in Abilene, Texas, now lives on Social Security disability.
His idea: Let them opt out of state workers' compensation laws — and write their own rules.
Minick swept his hand past pushpins marking the headquarters of Walmart, McDonald's and dozens of his other well-known clients, and hailed his plan as not only cheaper for employers, but better for workers too.
"We're talking about reengineering one of the pillars of social justice that has not seen significant innovation in 100 years," Minick said.
Minick's quest sounds implausible, but he's already scored significant victories.
Many of the nation's biggest retail, trucking, health care and food companies have already opted out in Texas, where Minick pioneered the concept as a young lawyer. Oklahoma recently passed a law co-written by Minick allowing companies to opt out there. Tennessee and South Carolina are seriously considering similar measures. And with a coalition led by executives from Walmart, Nordstrom and Lowe's, Minick has launched a campaign to get laws passed in as many as a dozen states within the next decade.
But as Minick's opt-out movement marches across the country, there has been little scrutiny of what it means for workers.
ProPublica and NPR obtained the injury benefit plans of nearly 120 companies who have opted out in Texas or Oklahoma — many of them written by Minick's firm — to conduct the first independent analysis of how these plans compare to state workers' comp.
The investigation found the plans almost universally have lower benefits, more restrictions and virtually no independent oversight.
Already in Texas, plans written by Minick's firm allow for a hodgepodge of provisions that are far different from workers' comp. They're why McDonald's doesn't cover carpal tunnel syndrome and why Brookdale Senior Living, the nation's largest chain of assisted living facilities, doesn't cover most bacterial infections. Why Taco Bell can accompany injured workers to doctors' appointments and Sears can deny benefits if workers don't report injuries by the end of their shifts.
And it's Minick's handiwork that allows Costco to pay only $15,000 to workers who lose a finger while its rival Walmart pays $25,000.
Unlike traditional workers' comp, which guarantees lifetime medical care, the Texas plans cut off treatment after about two years. They don't pay compensation for most permanent disabilities and strictly limit payouts for deaths and catastrophic injuries.
The list of what the plans don't cover runs for pages. They typically won't pay for wheelchair vans, exposure to asbestos, silica dust or mold, assaults unless the employee is defending "an employer's business or property," chiropractors or any more than 75 home health care visits. Costco won't cover external hearing aids costing more than $600. The cheapest external hearing aid Costco sells? $900.
The plans in both Texas and Oklahoma give employers almost complete control over the medical and legal process after workers get injured. Employers pick the doctors and can have workers examined — and reexamined — as often as they want. And they can settle claims at any time. Workers must accept whatever is offered or lose all benefits. If they wish to appeal, they can — to a committee set up by their employers.
In many cases, ProPublica and NPR found, the medical director charged with picking doctors and ultimately reviewing whether injuries are work-related is Minick's wife, Dr. Melissa Tonn, an occupational medicine specialist who often serves as an expert for employers and insurance companies.
Workers' comp was founded on the premise that employers owed a duty to injured workers and their families. And laws in every state require them to pay workers' medical bills and some of their lost wages until they recover — or for life if they can't.
Earlier this year, a ProPublica and NPR investigation detailed how states have chipped away at these guarantees. A series of new laws has cut benefits, given employers and insurers more control over medical care, and made it more difficult for workers to qualify for coverage. But other than Texas and Oklahoma, no state has allowed companies to simply opt out.
Minick, 55, markets his vision as a cure for the endless cycle of cuts.
"It's not about reducing benefits," he said. "We can objectively show you that we have saved our clients over a billion dollars against Texas workers' comp over the past decade. When you're saving that kind of money, you don't have to get hung up on squeezing the employee."
Yet Minick's push has united an unlikely set of allies — unions, trial lawyers and insurance companies. They say his idea isn't progress, but a return to the Industrial Age before workers' comp, when workers and their families had to sue their employers or bear the costs of on-the-job injuries themselves.
"That's the system we had in place 100 years ago," said Trey Gillespie, senior workers' comp director for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America. "This is not an innovative concept."
Mike Pinckard, a Fort Worth truck driver for 31 years, remembered when his employer, Martin-Brower, McDonald's largest distributor, announced last November that it would be switching to an opt-out plan.
"They told us this was going to be the best thing, that this was going to be better than workers' comp," he said.
Two months later, Pinckard said, he was pulling a cart loaded with frozen French fries when he slipped on some ice in his trailer and suffered a hernia. He had previously had two hernias on the job that were covered by workers' comp and figured this time would be no different.
But the denial letter said the plan for Reyes Holdings, which owns Martin-Brower, only covers two types of hernias — not the kind Pinckard suffered.
"The only way it was covered was if it was directly under my belly button," he said. "Mine was slightly above my belly button."
In this instance, as in others ProPublica and NPR found, the costs of the injury were shifted to the employee, group health or government programs.
Pinckard, 58, said he's spent over $10,000 in deductibles and copays after getting the hernia covered by his health plan.
"I gave my body and soul to the company, and they were doing the same back until last year," he said. "It's just an easy way for the company to get out of when you get hurt. It's all it is."
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Comment: Those at the helm of these corporations and those who are ultimately assisting them in their drive to implement serfdom are perfect examples of a society that has become completely ponerized.
How Societies Regress to Become Pathocracies