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(c) 2010-2026 Jon L Gelman, All Rights Reserved.

Monday, September 23, 2013

State Politics and the Fate of the Safety Net

Lacking workers' compensation coverage, injured workers rely upon a safety net of Federally provided medical benefits. Under the Affordable Care Act that safety net is shrinking. Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from www.nejm.org


Only 2% of acute care hospitals nationwide are safety-net facilities, but they provide 20% of uncompensated care to the uninsured. Because most are in low-income communities, they typically generate scant revenue from privately insured patients. The Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) program was established to help defray their costs for uncompensated care.

Currently, Medicaid DSH disburses $11.5 billion annually to the states, which have considerable latitude in allocating these funds. Some states carefully target their DSH payments to hospitals providing large volumes of uncompensated care, but others, such as Ohio and Georgia, spread their payments broadly, transforming the program into a de facto subsidy of their hospital industry.

Because the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was expected to dramatically expand insurance coverage, safety-net hospitals were expected to need less DSH money. Therefore, to reduce the cost of expanding Medicaid, the ACA reduced Medicaid DSH funding by $18.1 billion between fiscal years 2014 and 2020. To allow time for coverage expansion to take effect, the cuts are back-loaded — starting at $500 million (4% of current national DSH spending) in 2014 but reaching $5.6 billion (49% of current spending) in 2019.

The DSH cuts are so deep in part because Congress assumed that all...
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Tribunal finds Chevron not liable for environmental claims in Ecuador

Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com


Chevron Corp. announced Wednesday that an international arbitration tribunal has found the company not liable for environmental claims in Ecuador.

The tribunal is convened under the authority of the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty, also known as the BIT, and administered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

The PCA, located in The Hague, Netherlands, administers cases arising out of international treaties and other agreements to arbitrate.
On Tuesday, the tribunal issued a partial award in favor of Chevron and its subsidiary, Texaco Petroleum Company, or TexPet.

The tribunal found that the settlement and release agreements that the government of Ecuador entered into with TexPet released TexPet and its affiliates of any liability for all public interest or collective environmental claims.

The arbitration stems from Ecuador’s interference in the ongoing environmental lawsuit against the company.

“The game is up. This award by an eminent international tribunal confirms that the fraudulent claims against Chevron should not have been brought in the first place,” Hewitt Pate, Chevron’s vice president and general counsel, said in a statement. “It is now beyond question that efforts by American plaintiffs lawyers and the government of Ecuador to enforce this fraudulent judgment violate Ecuadorian, U.S. and international law.

“Continuing to support this fraud only increases the government of...
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Breathe Deep....on the airplane OR not?


Welcome sulfur dioxide,

Hello carbon monoxide
The air, the air is everywhere
Breathe deep, while you sleep, breathe deep
Lyrics from HAIR, The Broadway show

This post is shared from OH-world.org.

A review of chemical exposures associated with "fume events" on aircraft hears about two UK studies that found low levels of organophosphate contamination.


I attended a meeting of the UK Committee on Toxicity (COT) of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment to discuss our work on oil contamination in aircraft. This was one of a number of projects that were commissioned by the Department for Transport (DfT) following an earlier review, which included: a pilot study to scope methods for measuring air concentrations, analysis of data on the occurrence of fume events in British commercial aircraft, the main study measuring contaminant levels in cabin air and our study of residues on surfaces in aircraft.

Back in 2007 the COT reviewed information submitted by the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) about the possible effects on aircrew health from hydraulic fluid smoke/fume contamination incidents in commercial aircraft. These incidents occur infrequently because of small leaks in the engine, which result in a very fine oil mist being carried into the aircraft ventilation system. A key concern is the small amounts of organophosphate compounds present in the hydraulic oils. In their review the COT concluded there was insufficient evidence to show there was a causal association between cabin air exposures, either generally or following incidents, and ill-health in commercial aircraft crews.


Read more:
Oil contamination in aircraftA review of chemical exposures associated with "fume events" on aircraft hears about two UK studies that found low levels of organophosphate contamination.http://johncherrie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/oil-contamination-in-aircraft.html 

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CMS Publishes Rules to MSP Payments Under the SMART Act

Medicare has published proposed Rules to governor obtaining information concerning the conditional payments as required by the recently implemented SMART Act. The Regulations expand the bureaucratic framework for Medicare beneficiaries and their representatives in order to obtain and appeal information on condition payment demands from the government.

The Rules are effective on November 10, 2013 and the comment period closes at 5pm on that date.

The government will be establishing a multifactorial implementation process to keep information secure: DX Codes, provider names. dates of service and conditional payment amounts. Ultimately, it appears that the process will be yet another hurdle to obtain information for workers' compensation claims  and release the beneficiary from government liability for medical expenses.

The proposed CMS Rules can be reviewed at: https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/09/20/2013-22934/medicare-program-obtaining-final-medicare-secondary-payer-conditional-payment-amounts-via-web-portal
….

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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Sunday, September 22, 2013

Closing arguments in Calif. lead paint trial take place Monday

Lead poisoning and lead expose is widespread. A vast number of cases of lead exposure flow from the lead pigment that was placed by the paint industry into paint. The residuals of the lead paint remain in place in many public and private buildings exposing both workers' and children to lead exposure and  the resulting lead disease. Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com

Kleinberg

In the high stakes lead paint public nuisance case culminating in Santa Clara County Superior Court, both sides will make closing arguments Monday before Judge James Kleinberg.

The 10 city and county plaintiffs — Santa Clara County, San Francisco City, Alameda County, Los Angeles County, Monterey County, Oakland City, San Diego City, San Mateo County, Solano County and Ventura County — are expected to argue they have met a burden of proving their case by a preponderance of evidence.
Among other things, a team of attorneys for the plaintiffs will argue that the five defendant companies knew or should have known about the hazards created by the use of lead paint in homes, but promoted it anyway.

They seek abatement in approximately 500,000 pre-1978 built homes in the jurisdictions and estimate the cost at $1.6 billion for inspection and abatement if the public entities implement the program. Plaintiffs say it would cost $2.4 billion if implemented by the defendants.

Their plan calls for the creation of a fund administered by the public entities.
Defendant companies — Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries, ConAgra Grocery Products, DuPont and Atlantic Richfield Company — are expected to fiercely defend their position, saying plaintiffs did not meet a necessary test set forth by the state’s Sixth District Court of Appeal.
The paint companies will argue that the Sixth District allowed the 13-year-old case...
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TEPCO Official: Fukushima is Out of Control

International corporate responsibility for worker safety has worldwide ramifications. Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from www.commondreams.org


Fukushima nuclear plant in the immediate aftermath of Japan's March 2011 tsunami "I’m sorry, but we consider the situation is not under control."

Those were the words of Kazuhiko Yamashita, executive-level fellow for Fukushima plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company when he was pressed by the opposition Democratic Party of Japan.
His statements directly contradict the claims of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, who assured the International Olympic Committee meeting in Buenos Aires Saturday that the situation is under control.

TEPCO officials moved quickly to cover Yamashita's tracks, releasing a statement Friday declaring
"...It is our understanding that the Prime Minister intended his statement ‘the situation is under control’ to mean that the impact of radioactive materials is limited to the area within the port of the power station, and that the densities of radioactive materials on the surrounding waters are far below the referential densities and have not been on continuous upward trends. According to this understanding, we share the same views.
Yet, all evidence suggests that the crisis is far beyond the current abilities of the Japanese government and operator TEPCO to contain it.

Each day brings new disasters, with fresh reports on Friday that steam is billowing from a reactor. Radiation levels at the plant were found to be 18 times higher than TEPCO previously claimed, climbing to a high of 1800 millisieverts per hour—enough to kill...
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Home Care Workers Win Wage and Overtime Protection

Improving workers' compensation benefits begins with improving wages.Today's post was shared by votersinjuredatwork and comes from www.calaborfed.org



Nearly 2 million home care workers—the vast majority of whom are women—take care of the elderly and people with disabilities, often working 12-hour days and 60 to 70 hours a week. Now, for the first time since 1975, most of these workers will have the wage and overtime protection of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) under a new rule issued today by the Obama administration’s Department of Labor.  


Since they were exempted from the FLSA nearly four decades ago, home care workers seldom have been paid overtime and their net income is often less than the minimum wage, considering time spent in travel between the homes where they work in a single day and its cost. Unlike workers covered by federal labor laws, they have not been paid for all the hours they are on the clock.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the new rule:
"...finally recognizes the value of the work done by hundreds of thousands of people who take care of our aging parents, as well as our sisters, brothers and children with disabilities….Today’s action will not only benefit the largely female, minority and low-wage workers who provide these essential services, it will help to ensure an adequate supply of home care workers as demand grows, reduce turnover and improve quality, permitting more Americans who wish to stay in their own homes as they grow old or experience disability to do so.        
Secretary of Labor Thomas...
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