Missouri’s business community isn’t as optimistic as Governor Bob Holden appears to be over workers’ compensation costs in 2004. The Governor says he’s talked to experts who project those rates should drop an average of 1.4 percent next year. But Kelly Gillespie of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce says that’s not what his organization’s members are saying. Gillespie says workers’ comp rates will not decrease until the State gets a handle on lawsuits brought by trial attorneys and the fraud which exists in what he calls Missouri’s out-of-control workers’ compensation costs. Gillespie calls the Governor’s projection a smoke screen to hide the critical need for workers’ compensation reform.
