Ryan Nicol
After facing a rocky road on its way to Thursday’s hearing, a bill expanding access to insurance benefits for firefighters was approved unanimously by the House State Affairs Committee.
The measure (SAC 4) is what’s called a “presumptive cancer law.” While workers’ compensation typically covers one-the-job related ailments, it’s much more difficult to prove the direct link to cancer.
For firefighters, those cancers often stem from repeated exposure over years and decades to cancer-causing agents, rather than a single, identifiable instance.
A majority of states have passed similar legislation.
Like a companion bill (SB 426) filed by Sen. Anitere Flores, the House measure says that should a firefighter in good health get cancer, it is presumed the cancer stemmed from his or her work as a firefighter.
But while the Senate version sailed through its three committees unanimously, it was a struggle to even get a hearing on the House side.
House Speaker José Oliva originally blocked the bill from advancing in the House. The Tallahassee Democrat reported Oliva’s reasoning was over a political grudge, at least in part stemming from Miami-Dade County firefighters supporting former firefighter David Perez in a race against Oliva ally Manny Diaz in a 2018 Senate race.
At Thursday’s hearing, Committee Chairman Blaise Ingoglia called that characterization a “myth.”
“I can assure you that contrary to what has been reported, our firefighters and first responders are a priority to House leadership and Speaker Oliva,” Ingoglia added in a statement following the panel’s approval of the bill.
“When presented with the opportunity to carry this bill, it wasn’t a no…it wasn’t a yes. It was a hell yes because firefighters are the lifeline of our communities, and they deserve to know their bravery and sacrifice is never in vain.”
Oliva also released a statement Tuesday pushing back against the piece.
“The debate this year, as in past years, was never against firefighters nor was it political,” Oliva said. Instead, the Speaker argued his hesitation stemmed from disagreement over who would pay for the expanded coverage for firefighters.
“Still, the environment has become too toxic to debate the true original disagreement,” Oliva continued. “As such, we will move legislation forward, more so as the differences are not so great as to invite the assumptions now being spread.”
Indeed, concerns over who would foot the bill were raised by the Florida League of Cities at Thursday’s hearing. Those concerns have also been raised over on the Senate side. While the coverage mandate is being made at the state level, local governments who employ the firefighters worry they’ll be stuck with the cost.
Still, CFO Jimmy Patronis thanked Oliva for reversing course and allowing the bill to move forward.
Thank you, Speaker, for your compassion for our firefighters. Look forward to working w/ you, like we did last year on PTSD benefits, to get our heroes the cancer benefits they need & deserve. We do this for the 70% of line of duty FF deaths & those currently battling cancer. https://t.co/F9L5XUSgdV
— Jimmy Patronis (@JimmyPatronis) April 16, 2019
One comment
Laurence Gillis
April 18, 2019 at 2:04 pm
DIDDLING WITH THE EVIDENCE. Any lawyer worth their salt can tell you that a presumption in your favor is a VERY convenient thing to have at trial, because it effectively shifts the burden of persuasion to the other side. Some of these presumptions constitute Constitutional bedrock (e.g., the presumption of innocence).
More often — especially when they are legislatively-mandated — they are an attempt to tilt the playing field, by diddling with the evidence required to prove a case. Often they are are a payoff to some political constituency.
With all of the unspeakable poisons that are built into modern buildings (especially here in Florida, where EVERYTHING is NEW, and all the time), the presumption in favor of firefighters here is supposedly fact-based. I mean, why have to prove the obvious?
The problem, of course, is that the correlation between having cancer and being a firefighter is not at all obvious, at least not to me. In other words, why diddle with the rules of evidence and the burden of proof, when they have served us so well in the past?
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