- Why so much turnover in mayor's office?
- Hearing on the Ruby Hill towers
- Let freedom ring
- Promoting socialized medicine
- Immigration Laws or Lack Thereof
- Atheist Diversionary Tactics
- The "Melting Pot" is unique to America
- Many mighty hearts covering the world
- Roan Drilling Bad for Colorado, country
- Americans entitled to universal health care
Firefighters and cancer
This Speakout has not been edited
By State Rep. Mike Cerbo, House District 2, Denver
Peter Blake's article "Can passing bad bills help GOP?" in Saturday's Rocky Mountain News is heavy on political intrigue, but lacks the substance necessary to understand the plight of a firefighter who contracts certain job-related cancers. HB1008 ensures that firefighters will have the opportunity to receive the Workers Compensation benefits that they are due when on-the-job exposures allow certain carcinogens to invade their bodies.
He writes that the bill is "detested by those who would have to pay higher workers comp premiums, namely the municipalities and special districts that employ firefighters." But the experience of other states shows little or no effect on Workers Compensation premiums due to payment of cancer claims by firefighters. Additionally, the Colorado Legislative Council's fiscal analysis of this Bill indicates that the number of new claims filed annually is expected to be minimal.
The Bill is dismissed as "blatantly pro-union" while the only union to testify was the firefighters themselves. HB1008 is clearly a pro-firefighter Bill. Mr. Blake's statement that "nobody really knows what causes cancer" is not believable; everyone knows that many substances have been identified as carcinogens. These include the many cancer-causing chemicals to which firefighters are repeatedly exposed.
Firefighters have a higher incidence of contracting cancer than the general population. Numerous nationally published and accredited studies show that firefighters are exposed to a variety of known carcinogens, as defined by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, during their work. Practically every emergency situation encountered by a firefighter has the potential for exposure to carcinogenic agents such as benzene.
Despite this, firefighters never receive Workers Compensation for job-related cancer.
Since cancer can develop as a result of multiple exposures over time to cancer-causing agents, the exact moment of injury is impossible to pinpoint, a key issue in a traditional workers comp claim. Even if a firefighter contracts cancer as a result of one specific exposure, the cancer is unlikely to be diagnosed until long after the memory of that routine chemical exposure has passed.
House Bill 1008 would change this. Twenty-three other states have laws, like that proposed in House Bill 1008, which presume that firefighters contract job-related cancer due to their on-the-job exposure to carcinogens.
While the impact to the medical treatment of sick firefighters is huge, the fiscal impact is miniscule. In the first 4 years after passing presumptive cancer legislation in Nevada, the state had a total of three claims. The state of Oklahoma had 22 claims paid in the 6 years after passing presumptive legislation, an average of less than 4 claims per year. The average cost per claim was $10,409.00 for a state of 12,420 firefighters. This means that it about $3.00 per year per firefighter to pay for the coverage of cancer in his/her profession statewide.
Firefighters risk their lives daily to protect our homes, our families, and our land. They do so for the safety of Democrats and Republicans, employers and employees alike. They work in dangerous, uncontrolled environments. A fact of this job is that these men and women expose themselves to toxins that cause them to develop various forms of cancer. This is the risk firefighters take to help us in our hour of need.
House Bill 1008 is a small step that we can take to protect firefighters in their hour of need.