The Legislature's Labor and Housing Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to approve an omnibus workers' compensation bill that would raise benefits and reinstate a cost-of-living adjustment.

John Rohde

The bill, which incorporates many of the reforms included in 27 bills that were introduced by Democrats this year, now goes to the full House and Senate for a floor vote, according to a Maine news report.

With a majority in both chambers and a Democratic governor for the first time in eight years, worker advocates are hoping for the first significant changes to benefit levels in more than two decades.

The bill, endorsed by the Labor and Housing Committee’s Democratic majority, would raise the maximum weekly benefit; would reinstate a cost-of-living adjustment for those receiving long-term benefits; and would increase benefits to workers with partial disabilities.

At Tuesday’s hearing, John Rohde, executive director of the Maine Workers’ Compensation Board who was appointed this year by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, estimated that the Democrats’ version of the bill would increase the cost of workers’ comp insurance by about 4%. Critics of the reform said the estimate was probably on the low side.

“No actuaries (were) involved in his conclusions and there was an absence of significant cost drivers,” said Tony Payne, senior vice president of Maine Employers’ Mutual Insurance Co., or MEMIC, the state’s largest provider of workers’ comp insurance with about two-thirds of all Maine workers under its coverage.