So far the plan to reform workers' compensation has been all talk and little agreement.

Almost everybody in state government Gov. Pat Quinn, the legislature and interest group leaders is talking about workers' compensation reform these days.

But nobody is doing anything about it.

So state Rep. John Bradley, a Democrat from Marion, has come up with his own plan. He wants to blow up the current system and replace it with nothing.

"It's my belief that it's gotten to a point where the best thing to do is just abolish it, and send the cases back to circuit court," said Bradley, chairman of an Illinois House committee that's trying to put together a legislative fix to the state's disastrously expensive status quo.

Bradley's proposal is, most probably, a shot across the bow to all the parties involved in the current negotiations big labor, trial lawyers, medical groups and business.

He's essentially telling them that if they don't get together on a compromise plan they might lose all control over the situation and get a result they won't like.

Bradley's thunderbolt was preceded by another recent shocker, this one from Caterpillar chief executive officer Doug Oberhelman. He recently wrote Gov. Pat Quinn a letter to inform him that several states are trying to lure Cat's corporate headquarters from Peoria. Oberhelman warned that if Illinois did not start working to improve its business climate, Cat might go.

Since then, the parties have gotten together for a makeup session. Quinn praised Cat, and Cat promised not to move its corporate headquarters.

But the rhetoric was empty. Cat has been dismantling its presence in Illinois for years, and it is now a shell of what it was 30 years ago. The bottom line is that thousands of well-paying manufacturing jobs have disappeared from Illinois and relocated elsewhere, either overseas or in other states.

Not all of that is due to Illinois' hostile business climate. Some obviously is related to the international market.

But the citizens of Illinois are paying heavily in terms of lost employment opportunities for the legislative folly our elected officials have visited upon them.

Why is Illinois among the most expensive states for workers' compensation? Because the system was designed to be abused.

No one is interested in denying claims of people legitimately injured on the job. But should that group include an intoxicated worker, as the law now permits? Should someone injured while working on a project at home be able to seek compensation from his employer, as the law now permits?

The current system is a scandal, and a disincentive for businesses to locate or expand in Illinois, resulting in jobs not created, incomes not earned, taxes not paid and prosperity not achieved. As Bradley has suggested, a system like that desperately needs to be improved, and maybe even destroyed.