THE BIG HURT

Organized labor is highly skeptical of NCCI's figures, noting that the actuarial firm is essentially an arm of the insurance companies. And NCCI is being sued by the attorney general of South Carolina and by private employers in North Carolina, Alabama and Texas for alleged price-fixing. The firm is accused of conspiring with insurance companies to overcharge employers on workers' comp premiums and of failing to report illegal overcharges to state regulators. Spokesmen for NCCI have termed the suits "totally without merit."

Even the Colorado business leaders now relying on NCCI figures in the anti-11 fight have accused the insurance group of making rate requests based on inaccurate statistics in the past. Last year, for instance, when NCCI filed a request for a 5 percent decrease in Colorado premiums for workers' compensation insurance, the business community howled, maintaining that the figures were skewed and that its members were owed more of a break. The insurance commission agreed with business owners and drove the decrease down to 7.8 percent.

And at this point, it may be illogical to rely on any study. In the end, acknowledges Martin Lewis, who helped prepare the Tillinghast study for the state insurance commission, nobody can really say what the financial impact of Amendment 11 would be.

"If Amendment 11 passes, naturally some people will switch and say that instead of having their employer designate [a health-care provider], `I'll use my own,'" says Lewis. "We don't know how many will switch. Nobody knows. That, in my opinion, adds a lot of uncertainty to it. It's just a very high-charged political thing, and both sides are pulling out all the stops.