EPA Web Tool Expands Access to Scientific, Regulatory Information on Chemicals

Today's post was shared by US EPA News and comes from yosemite.epa.gov

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched a web-based tool, called ChemView, to significantly improve access to chemical specific regulatory information developed by EPA and data submitted under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). “This online tool will improve access to chemical health and safety information, increase public dialogue and awareness, and help viewers choose safer ingredients used in everyday products,” said James Jones, assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.  “The tool will make chemical information more readily available for chemical decision-makers and consumers.”The ChemView web tool displays key health and safety data in an online format that allows comparison of chemicals by use and by health or environmental effects.  The search tool combines available TSCA information and provides streamlined access to EPA assessments, hazard characterizations, and information on safer chemical ingredients. Additionally, the new web tool allows searches by chemical name or Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) number, use, hazard effect, or regulatory action.  It has the flexibility to create tailored views of the information on individual chemicals or compare multiple chemicals sorted by use, hazard effect or other criteria. The new portal will also...

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Listen to the GAO Podcast: Social Security Administration Improper Disability Insurance Payments

Social Security Administration Improper Disability Insurance Payments

Click here to listen

SSA's DI program is the nation's largest cash assistance program for workers with disabilities. Though program rules allow limited work activity, some work activity indicates beneficiaries are not disabled and therefore not entitled to DI benefits. Consequently, SSA might overpay beneficiaries if the agency does not detect disqualifying work activity and suspend benefits appropriately.

GAO was asked to study potential DI overpayments. GAO examined the extent to which

 (1) the NDNH indicates that individuals received potential DI overpayments; and 

(2) SSA's enforcement operation detects potentially disqualifying work activity during the waiting period. 

GAO drew random, generalizable samples of individuals from those whose earnings on the NDNH were beyond program limits and compared wages from their employers to DI program data to identify potential overpayments. To illustrate the circumstances in which SSA made potential DI overpayments, GAO reviewed case files for a nongeneralizable selection of six individuals--three who worked during their waiting period, and three who received potential overpayments for at least 3 years.

Recommendation: To improve SSA's ability to detect and prevent potential DI cash benefit overpayments due to work activity during the 5-month waiting period, the Commissioner of Social Security should assess the costs and feasibility of establishing a mechanism to detect potentially disqualifying earnings during all months of the waiting period, including those months of earnings that the agency's enforcement operation does not currently detect and implement this mechanism, to the extent that an analysis determines it is cost-effective and feasible.

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Hacking the Affordable Care Act

Workers' Compensation is really "married" to the Affordable Care Act (AFA). As that law is modified so will workers' compensation medical delivery. Today's post was shared by The Health Care Blog and comes from thehealthcareblog.com

By ROGER COLLIER It may say something about expectations for the Affordable Care Act that the simplistic “just repeal Obamacare” cries of Congressional Republicans are starting to be supplemented by proposals for its replacement. The most detailed so far is from the conservative American Enterprise Institute, which has published an unexpectedly non-doctrinaire study authored by Harvard professor Michael Chernew and seven other respected academics. It’s far from perfect, but it’s worth reading. Structural details of the AEI proposal, modestly titled “Best of Both Worlds,” aren’t always clear (page 1 lists four “principles,” page 5 lists five “priorities”, and page 16 lists three “major planks”), but it does attempt a bipartisan approach, combining ideas from left and right. Some of these ideas have been contained in other proposals, such as those of Wyden and Bennett and Fuchs and Emanuel (which may damn the AEI proposal in right-wing eyes), and most recently in a THCB piece by Martin Gaynor. They include the elimination of the employer coverage tax preference, the provision of “premium support” subsidies for most individuals, and the establishment of a national insurance exchange. Together, they are designed to encourage individual choice and responsibility and to maximize competition between insurers, while removing some of the inequities of the present system (and of the ACA). The AEI...

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Drive Safely Work Week

Transportation accidents occurr at some of the highest rates while working. Today's post was shared by NIOSH Transportation and comes from trafficsafety.org

Welcome to Drive Safely Work Week (DSWW) 2013— Gear Up For Safe Driving: Mind • Body • Vehicle. This year's campaign takes a holistic approach to safe driving that highlights how being at your physical and mental best—along with the "health" of your vehicle—are all connected in making us safer drivers. Among other things, the campaign materials cover: Tips for getting better sleep; The importance of regular vision screening; Strategic ways to use rest breaks to sustain energy and focus; and Making sure drivers have the right fit to their vehicle and that the vehicle is fit for a safe trip. Simple, actionable steps are provided to help employees be at their best behind the wheel of a well-maintained vehicle. In the U.S. alone, employers have the opportunity to directly reach more than half of the driving population—even more when information is extended to employee family and community members. Working together, we can significantly reduce the number of traffic crashes and injuries that impact our workforce, members of our families and communities worldwide. Thank you for downloading the 2013 DSWW campaign. We appreciate your partnership with us to help make a difference in the lives of people around the world. Safe travels, Sandra Lee NETS Chair Director, Worldwide Fleet Safety Johnson & Johnson

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EPA Orders Public Water System on Indian Reservation in Riverside County to Address Arsenic in Drinking Water

Today's post was shared by US EPA News and comes from yosemite.epa.gov

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week ordered D&D Mobile Home Park to address violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act. D&D, located on the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian Reservation in Riverside County, was found to have high levels of arsenic in its public system that provides drinking water to its 300 mobile park residents.

The order requires D&D to come into compliance with the arsenic drinking water standard as well as conduct more consistent arsenic monitoring.Sampling data showed arsenic at concentrations as high as 0.059 milligrams per liter—almost six times the EPA’s maximum contamination levels for arsenic. Sampling data also showed the presence of coliform bacteria. D&D is a privately owned and operated system on the Indian Reservation. 

The order requires D&D to submit, within 90 days, a written plan for EPA review that will demonstrate the mobile park’s strategy to bring the water system into compliance with the federal arsenic standard by December 31, 2014. Quarterly arsenic water sampling is also required. 

The penalty for not complying with the terms of the order can be up to $37,500 per day based on federal statutory law.

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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman  1.973.696.7900  jon@gelmans.com  have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

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Getting While the Getting Is Good

Preparing for disability can only go so far. Sometime pre-emptive action needs to be taken. This is an example of what aging workers need to consider. Today's post was shared by The New Old Age and comes from newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com

“Don’t wait for a crisis,” I told a friend whose elderly parents were struggling to care for themselves and a big Connecticut home. “Don’t wait for a crisis,” I told another friend, his mother recently widowed, lonely and overwhelmed, rattling around in a family house that was now her solo responsibility. “Don’t wait for a crisis,” I told a third friend, whose widowed father-in-law dropped his daily insulin regimen after his live-in girlfriend left him. “Don’t wait for a crisis,” I’ve told readers of “The New Old Age,” no doubt ad nauseam. As just about everyone who has cared for an aging parent knows, getting old is both an inexorable and maddeningly unpredictable forward march. Everything is OK. Then it’s not. Then it is again. What felt early on like a roller coaster becomes the new normal. In between swerves and plummets, it is almost possible to doze off. And planning for all possible eventualities is useless — after the essential documents are in place, the family has talked openly and often about end-of-life wishes, they understand the difference between Medicare and Medicaid, they know how much money is available and that it is probably not going to be enough. Caregivers and their elderly charges both know, in a spoken or unspoken way, that on the horizon is The Crisis. That’s the one that demarcates “before” and “after.” Your parents...

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Deadline for Filing 9-11 Claims Approaches - Cancer Claims Soar

As the October 3, 2013 deadline for filing 9-11 World Trade Center claims for benefits approaches, an increase in the number of claims flowing from cancer continue to soar. Over 1,100 cancer claims have been filed to date.

"More than 1,100 people who worked or lived near the World Trade Center on 9/11 have been diagnosed with cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

Click here to read the compete article from CNN.

Click here for more information about filing a claim. 

….

Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman  1.973.696.7900  jon@gelmans.com  have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.