Peter Blake spins for the Democrats

11 thoughts on “Peter Blake spins for the Democrats”

1. Why do Firemen need worker’s comp for cancer..? ….bunch of slackers.

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2. so walk me through your premise here. Do you think Balmer is voting for this because he thinks it is good legislation?  Just curious, not challenging you.

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3. HB 1008 states that if a firefighter, upon employment did not have brain, skin, digestive system, hematological system (bone marrow, for example) or genitourinary system (reproductive/urinary) cancer, and develops one of these conditions while employed as a firefighter, than they get workman’s comp. 

   How is that going to affect everyone’s taxes, let alone be a violation of TABOR?

   As for Balmer voting it out of committee, I tend to agree with Blake in that they want to get Dems on record. Why would Ritter want revenge on Balmer?

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   1. The bill’s assumption is that if a firefighter gets cancer after five years on the job, fighting fires and sitting around waiting for action caused the cancer.

      Therefore, the employer, a municipality, should pay for it.

      The assumption is wrong. If firefighters get cancer after five years on the job, they would get cancer at that point in their lives regardless of who employed them.

      Apparently, the fire fighters want workers comp coverage of cancer because that will give them better benefits than the health insurance that the firefighters buy through the fire departments that employ them. If cancer is not a covered risk under the health insurance obtained from their fire departments, premiums supposedly would decline. Depending on the share of the premium paid by the fire fighter, the workers’ premiums also would decline proportionately, or, at least, not go up so fast.

      What’s not known to me is the incidence of cancer in fire fighters versus the rest of us, cross tabbed by age, race, type of cancer and type of fires most commonly encountered. I’m assuming that the fire fighters are claiming that because they inhale smoke in their work, that causes lung cancer and who knows what.

      I think their cancer should be covered by their current health insurers. If fire fighters don’t like the benefits offered by their employers, they should demand better benefits from their employers, not from the workers comp risk pool.

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      1. I think it is highly unlikely that a fire fighter could get cancer in five years, but if there are stats that say they do, I’ll listen.  It takes most smokers decades to get lung cancer.

         What point were you making about the reporter though?  Do you disagree that he voted it out of committee as a tool to use against Dems?

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         1. It seems obvious to me that a Dem wanted to show up Balmer and the GOP and to make the issue partisan so that the bill will make it to Ritter’s desk. I think it’s also possible that a union-backed Dem wanted to put Ritter on the spot and force him to back the bill.

            The alternative, of course, is that Balmer or a Repub could have planted the story for their own purposes. The probablity is higher that this was a Dem plant.

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      2. But I’m still not getting your argument.

         How would the fact that some firefighters getting cancer increase all our taxes?  You’re making some assumptions in your comments above that I’m not following.

         I did a quick Google and found a University of Cincinnati study that studied 110,000 firefighters and half the studied cancers–including testicular, prostate, skin, brain, rectum, stomach and colon cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, multiple myeloma and malignant melanoma–were associated with firefighting on varying levels of increased risk.

         Interestingly, I would assume, as you do, that lung cancer would be the greatest risk, but apparently the chemicals these guys breathe in harm more than just their lungs.  And lung cancer isn’t mentioned in the bill.

         With all that said, I don’t think the bill is a good bill either.  It opens up the door to future abuses in other professions.

         I think the spin in your diary is coming from you and not Peter Blake.

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      3. It would force municipalities and fire districts to pay higher workers comp premiums and pass them on to taxpayers.

         The question is, would the regular health insurance premiums go down if cancer care were covered by workers comp instead of the regular policies.

         That depends on whether the regular policies would continue to cover cancer, which is possible. And it depends on whether the increase in workers comp premiums would exceed the slower rate of growth in regular health insurance premiums.

         My guess is that the workers comp premium increase would be bigger than the cut, if any, in regular premiums. The unknowns to me are the co-pays in fire fighters’ workers comp plans versus the co pays in their regular health insurance, which probably varies from one municipality to another.

         Big question is how hard municipalities will fight the bill. Any ideas?

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         1. Thanks for the clarifications. See where you’re coming from now.

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            1. I would expect the cities, towns, counties and fire districts to oppose the firefighters’ attempt to squeeze their budgets and force them to go to voters for higher taxes.

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               1. CML is the Municiple League – They’re working the bill.  I’m not sure if Colorado Counties Inc (CCI) or the special districts are against it. I’m betting the districts are but the counties may not have a dog in the fight.

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