§ 28-53-1. Preamble and legislative findings.
WHEREAS, The system of workers' compensation in the state of Rhode Island was once
in a state of acute crisis until legislative intervention and oversight produced what
is now a nationally recognized model of a well-managed economical program that provides
injured workers with appropriate compensation, health care, and rehabilitative services
without unduly burdening employers, insurers, and the citizens of Rhode Island; and
WHEREAS, Legislative and policy changes have corrected the abuses and misuse of the
workers' compensation system while assisting injured workers, restoring fiscal stability,
and eliminating waste and unnecessary costs; and
WHEREAS, Professionals providing services covered under the provisions of the workers'
compensation act have taken into account, in the performance of their service, the
important public policy benefit of a sound and properly functioning workers' compensation
system in this state, and have tirelessly committed themselves to protect and maintain
the integrity of this system; and
WHEREAS, Abuse and misuse of the workers' compensation system by noncomplying employers
has been reduced through the state's mandatory requirement that employers subject
to the law either self-insure or maintain a policy of workers' compensation insurance
to ensure that legitimately injured workers receive all the rights and benefits provided
in the workers' compensation act; and
WHEREAS, Substantive efforts have already been undertaken by the general assembly,
the workers' compensation court, and the department of labor and training to eliminate
the illegal, irresponsible, and unscrupulous behavior of employers who openly and
deliberately operate businesses in Rhode Island without workers' compensation insurance
for their employees; and
WHEREAS, The actions of noncomplying employers are illegal and deprive not only injured
employees of the workers' compensation benefits to which they are entitled but also
cause greater social and financial costs to all citizens of Rhode Island including
employers and healthcare providers who incur uncompensated expenses in treating the
victims of the uninsured employer; and
WHEREAS, Additional reform is required to provide payments to employees who are injured
while in the service of uninsured employers and to eliminate the flagrant abuse of
the system by illegally uninsured employers by requiring them to accept their legal
responsibility to pay the appropriate benefits to their insured employees; now, therefore
be it
RESOLVED, That it is declared to be the intent of the legislature that an uninsured
protection fund be created to ensure that injured workers who are employed by illegally
uninsured employers are not deprived of payments. The fund shall have enforcement
mechanisms as are necessary to induce illegally uninsured employers to acknowledge
their malfeasance, provide legally mandated payments for injured workers; and to assure
that all participants in the system recognize their obligation to conduct themselves
in a manner consistent with the overall integrity of the compensation system. All
amounts owed to the uninsured protection fund from illegally uninsured employers are
intended to be excise taxes and as such, all ambiguities and uncertainties are to
be resolved in favor of a determination that such assessments are excise taxes.