Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, a Seattle Democrat and chairwoman of the Senate Labor, Commerce & Consumer Protection Committee, cut straight to the chase this morning in opening a  work session on Washington's Workers Compensation program.

"In a very short, 60-day session, that is not sufficient time to reform our system,' Kohl-Welles said. "We need to approach it in a deliberate manner. The first part of that is to get accurate information on the table.'

The system has been under scrutiny since the Department of Labor & Industries announced rate increases.

Agency Director Judy Schurke opened the work session by outlining the trends that are driving workers’ compensation rates up. Most notably, she cited the national recession for causing investments to suffer and unemployment to increase all while health care costs continued to soar by 8.5 percent a year.

“Our system has a strong reputation of protecting workers in Washington,” she said.

Business interests argued Washington’s system is too expensive while labor interests described Washington as a “low-cost state and a high benefit state.”

Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Kent, reiterated her commitment to finding a way to structure rates so they don’t spike.

“We must smooth things out,” she said, referencing the rate holiday businesses were given several years ago.

Kohl-Welles has introduced Senate Bill 6775 which directs L&I to convene a task force to make recommendations on how to improve our Workers Compensation system so that it continues to serve injured workers and is fair to businesses.