With a modest workers’ compensation reform idea dead for 2012, now is the time to turn our attention to the only work comp reform that ultimately matters. To that end, I commend to your attention a new OCPA report, “Once More into the Breach: The Path to Effective Workers’ Compensation Reform in Oklahoma.” Law professor Andrew Spiropoulos, who serves as OCPA’s Milton Friedman Distinguished Fellow, makes the case that Oklahoma’s efforts to reform the workers’ compensation system repeatedly disappoint because we refuse to address the chief structural feature of our system: its conception and organization as a judicial system. He recommends moving to an administrative system, with a more limited role for the judiciary.

As you know, OCPA’s ideas often become law, and few people in Oklahoma have better ideas than Andy Spiropoulos. (Incidentally, Andy’s expertise in another area is included in a new completely searchable U.S. Constitution, containing clause-by-clause analysis.) I urge you to give OCPA’s new workers’ compensation report careful consideration.