Son Of Boondoggle

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Son Of Boondoggle

April 8 2007

The state's "heart and hypertension law" was a boon for some public safety workers and a large fiscal burden for local governments. There's a bill in the legislature that would bring back a more expansive version of this gold-plated albatross. The bill needs to be walked from the hopper to the shredder.

The original law, passed in 1971, created a presumption that heart disease or hypertension contracted by a police officer or firefighter was job-related, automatically entitling the cop or firefighter to workers compensation benefits.

There was no credible scientific evidence that public safety officers suffered more heart and hypertension troubles than any other group. To assume that they did was often to reward officers who smoked, were overweight or otherwise didn't take care of themselves. There were many examples of cops or firefighters who retired from one police or fire department with heart and hypertension benefits and then took a job with another department.

This benefit so generously bestowed by the state had to be paid by the towns, and cost towns a fortune. The law was finally changed in 1996, disallowing the benefit to those hired from that point on. Towns are still paying through the nose - $20 million a year by one estimate - for those hired before the law changed.

This year's proposal would not only bring back the heart and hypertension presumption, it would add a presumption that police officers or firefighters who contract hepatitis, meningitis or tuberculosis did so in the course of employment, and that firefighters who contract many forms of cancer do so on the job.

Some have called this bill "son of heart and hypertension," and like its forebear it is bad public policy. It will cost towns millions of dollars for no good reason. Police officers and firefighters do hard and dangerous work, but their job-related injuries or illnesses are already covered by the workers compensation system. All the worker has to do is show a plausible connection between the ailment and a job-related incident or activity. That is fair.

What the bills asks for is not fair. Local taxpayers are not an insurance company. They already pay for a very good benefits package for most municipal employees. They shouldn't have to pay for this excessive benefit.