According to a report from Citizen Times, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed a new state budget on November 18 that will include funds for presumptive cancer coverage, marking the end of a 10-year battle Ashville Fire Department (AFD) Captain Scott Mullins fought to establish a supplemental insurance policy for firefighters diagnosed with cancer.
Until the budget’s approval, North Carolina was one of just two states without any presumptive cancer coverage for firefighters.
Statistics from the International Association of Fire Fighters show that cancer is the leading cause of line-of-duty deaths among firefighters. Before this legislation, Mullins said that firefighters basically needed to die to receive benefits.
With hardly any roads to financial protection related to occupational cancer available, AFD members who were expecting to fight fires instead were left with significant medical bills in the face of a terminal cancer diagnosis.
Included in Cooper’s two-year budget is an appropriation of $15 million over two fiscal years to establish and administer a pilot program that provides health benefits for eligible firefighters with a new diagnosis of cancer after January 1, 2022. This program will run through June 30, 2023
The program allocates $25,000 for each cancer diagnosis a firefighter receives, and up to $50,000 total. It also reimburses medical costs up to $12,000 for any out-of-pocket medical expenses that are incurred annually, including deductibles, co-payments, or co-insurance costs.
Mullins, who is also the president of the Asheville Firefighters Association as well as the Professional Fire Fighters and Paramedics Association of North Carolina, wrote the pilot program’s legislation along with lobbyist and attorney Skye David.
The program also includes disability benefits that can last up to 36 months, if a firefighter cannot return to work, and will receive up to 75% of their monthly salary or $5,000, whichever is less.
In a landmark 2013 study conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), firefighters were found to have a nine-percent higher risk of a cancer diagnoses, and 14-percent higher than the general U.S. population to pass away from cancer.
The study also found that firefighters are more likely to develop respiratory, digestive, and urinary systems cancer, and that firefighters had a rate of mesothelioma double than the rate in the U.S. population. The researchers said these cases were most likely associated with exposure to asbestos, a cause of mesothelioma.
Mullins said he expects the pilot program to be extended beyond 2023, but the initial window of implementation will determine the actual cost of the program.
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