California’s Chamber of Commerce announced that it has hired a new policy advocate for workers’ compensation – Jeremy Merz (a graduate of University of California, Davis and McGeorge School of Law, much like your humble blogger – but please don’t hold that against Mr. Merz, WCDefenseCA has every confidence in his abilities to advocate on behalf of employers suffering from lack of workers’ compensation reform.)

From time to time, this blog has reported on the constant chipping away at the reforms of 2004 and 2005 by applicant’s attorneys, lien claimants, and prescription and surgery-happy physicians (and their lobbying groups).  A series of landmines were side-stepped by Governor Brown in 2011 with the use of his pen for both signing laws and vetoing them.

No doubt the efforts to increase temporary disability to 240 weeks, bring back “rehabilitated” body parts while repealing apportionment under Labor Code section 4663, and countless other assaults on Utilization Review, fee schedules, etc. all await us in 2012.

Lobbying dollars and resources spent on retaining policy advocates are a worthwhile investment for those companies not yet packing the moving trucks and abandoning the Golden State.  Mr. Merz – good luck to you, sir.