The Iowa Senate is looking to make some changes to the state’s worker’s compensation law.

District 24 Senator Jerry Behn says the framework for worker’s compensation was created in 1913 and it worked so well, it became a model for other states to follow. Then in 2006, Iowa had the fifth lowest worker’s compensation claims in the country. However, in the last decade, some lawsuits have tipped the scales toward the injured employees. Behn points out that over 250 job creators in the state last year wanted to bring worker’s compensation back to a balance.

“We wanted to get it to where we were doing what we did before and that is we didn’t have as much fraud, we didn’t have that much waste, we didn’t have that much abuse in the system. And we wanted to get predictability and fairness back into it.”

He outlines a couple of the changes in the bill.

“The whole concept is trying to be sure that the workers get paid fairly, but they can’t double dip and once they go to court, there are some legalities that need to be worked on. It’s all going to be part of the discussion is to how we can get that accomplished.”  

The House passed its version of the bill earlier this week.