January 11, 2019

To the Honorable Members of

The Illinois House of Representatives,

100th General Assembly:

Today I veto House Bill 200 from the 100th General Assembly, which requires employers to provide written explanations of workers’ compensation claim denials to an employee or his or her designee, which will likely often be their attorney. This added reporting would risk creating unnecessary patient confusion while simultaneously adding a new layer of legal bureaucracy to the workers’ compensation system.

Illinois already faces the highest amount of lawyer involvement in the workers’ compensation system of any state, an outcome largely attributable to certain sectors of the legal industry writing the rules surrounding workers’ compensation. Rules that favor the legal industry do not necessarily benefit workers or job creators, they instead mean higher costs and fewer jobs for manufacturers; economically speaking, changes like this can be considered a litigation tax on all job creation in Illinois.

Despite successfully lowering workers’ compensation costs over the last four years, reform of the system is still necessary. We should not be making standalone changes to the system like those contained within House Bill 200 absent broader changes to the overall system.

Therefore, pursuant to Section 9(b) of Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I hereby return House Bill 200, entitled “AN ACT concerning employment,” with the foregoing objections, vetoed in its entirety.

Sincerely,

Bruce Rauner

GOVERNOR