Quote of the day
"Much like an 18-year-old coal miner who knows the black lung is there and that it's just a matter of time how much he puts up with and how much he walks away with, the game of football is fraught with injuries."
Former professional football player Dan Hampton
Bloomberg: Establish Federal Victim Compensation Fund
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg calls on the federal government to establish a compensation fund modeled after the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund for Ground Zero recovery workers who are succumbing to illnesses related to their toxic exposures. By Heidi J. Shrager, Staten Island Advance
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As City Bears Down for Big Game, Former Champs Speak Up
Researchers estimate that collisions between professional football players involve forces up to 100 times the pull of gravity, analogous to a car crashing into a brick wall at 25 miles per hour. Several members of the 1985 championship Chicago Bears team are among the many mangled former players locked up with the league over disability benefits. By Melissa Isaacson, Chicago Tribune
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Project Manager Nabbed for Scheme to Defraud New York WCB
A 35-year-old former computer contractor for the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board conspired to defraud the agency out of approximately $450,000, authorities charge. The contractor, a Seoul resident, was arrested in Bali, Indonesia, last month. North Country Gazette (Chestertown, N.Y.)
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Ohio Employers Pay Needlessly Inflated Rates
All it takes is an injury or two to send an Ohio employer’s workers compensation rates through the roof. They are casualties of a state-sanctioned program that has allowed a handful of private firms to manipulate the scandal-ridden Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation’s premiums for their own benefit and that of their clients. By Bob Paynter, Cleveland Plain Dealer
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Editorial: Colorado Firefighters Cancer Bill Tries to Fix What Isn’t Broken
The latest example of Colorado’s labor organizations’ overreaching is firefighters’ effort to get more cancer cases covered by workers compensation. Colorado House Bill 1008 provides that most cancers that afflict firefighters after five years on the job “shall be presumed to result” from their employment, leaving the burden on employers to show that the cancer was not job related. Rocky Mountain News (Denver)
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Will This Year Be Different in the Empire State?
Business groups say New York’s workers’ compensation law is too expensive; labor advocates say the system brutalizes injured workers. Despite numerous failed attempts to reform the law, this year may be different with new Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who has promised overhaul, in charge. By Allan Drury and Jerry Gleeson, Journal News (White Plains, N.Y.)
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Ten Charged in Empire State Comp Fraud Bust
Ten individuals face charges of workers’ compensation fraud totaling more than $110,000 following a seven-month investigation by the Queens District Attorney’s Economic Crimes Bureau, the New York State Insurance Fund, the New York State Insurance Department’s Insurance Frauds Bureau, and the Inspector General’s Office of the State Workers’ Compensation Board. North Country Gazette (Chestertown, N.Y.)
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‘Bama Businessman Claims Extortion, Vendetta
A Montgomery, Ala., businessman claims the state insurance commissioner set “a path to destroy” his workers’ compensation insurance operation after he turned in two consultants who tried to get him to pay for political favors. By Mike Linn and Francis X. Gilpin, Montgomery Advertiser
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