On KBDI's Independent Thinking, Suthers and Caldara dispensed falsehoods about firefighter cancer bill

Written by Media Matters Staff

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On KBDI Channel 12's Independent Thinking, host Jon Caldara and Colorado Attorney General John Suthers (R) distorted a new law regarding workers compensation coverage for firefighters who contract certain cancers presumed to result from their duties. Caldara and Suthers misleadingly suggested that a firefighter who for years has “been smokin' like a chimney” and suffered lung cancer, or a dispatcher with breast cancer, would be covered, as Suthers asserted, "[f]or lifetime benefits out of workman's comp." In fact, neither lung cancer nor breast cancer is a compensable disease under the terms of the measure.

On the July 6 broadcast of KBDI Channel 12's Independent Thinking, host and Independence Institute president Jon Caldara joined Colorado Attorney General John Suthers (R) in distorting the recently enacted House Bill 1008 concerning workers compensation coverage for firefighters who contract certain types of cancer “deemed to have occurred within the course and scope of employment” as a firefighter. Caldara and Suthers claimed that the bill's provisions are broad enough to provide taxpayer-funded “lifetime benefits” to firefighters who contract “lung cancer from smoking” or to a “dispatcher [who] gets breast cancer.” In fact, the list of cancers covered by the bill does not include lung or breast cancer.

From the July 6 broadcast of KBDI Channel 12's Independent Thinking:

SUTHERS: We saw a, a bill that a lot people didn't pay much attention to in the legislature this year that I think is a real harbinger of things to come. It was a workman's comp bill, said firemen -- if you're a fire department employee, you contract cancer for -- of any kind after five years on the job, presumption that it's work-related and the employer has to prove beyond -- basically by preponderance of the evidence, a very high burden of proof, that it's not. They won't be able to. Next year I suspect they'll go after all public safety workers, and it's part of a, a, a --

CALDARA: So in other words, if I'm a fireman and I've been smokin' like a chimney ever since I was a teenager and I get lung cancer, the presumption is that I got that because I, I was a fireman, even though --

SUTHERS: Yeah, or if you get prostate cancer, or if the dispatcher gets breast cancer.

CALDARA: The dispatcher?

SUTHERS: That's right.

CALDARA: So the dispatcher gets lung cancer from smoking, we -- the insurance needs to say, “Oh, no, no, that was from her smoking,” and prove it, otherwise the taxpayer's on, on the hook for this.

SUTHERS: For lifetime benefits out of workman's comp.

HB 1008, which Gov. Bill Ritter (D) signed into law on May 17, makes it easier for firefighters diagnosed with suspected job-related cancer to collect medical costs under the state's workers compensation program. Contrary to Caldara and Suthers' assertions that “lung cancer from smoking” and breast cancer are covered by the new law, HB 1008 in fact specified the types of cancer covered under the legislation and neither lung cancer nor breast cancer was included. According to the bill:

[The] death, disability, or impairment of health of a firefighter of any political subdivision who has completed five or more years of employment as a firefighter, caused by cancer of the brain, skin, digestive system, hematological system, or genitourinary system and resulting from his or her employment as a firefighter, shall be considered an occupational disease.

In opposing the bill in a January 28 editorial, the Rocky Mountain News noted that lung cancer would not be considered a compensable disease under the terms of HB 1008:

Firefighters would have to undergo a physical exam upon employment allegedly to show they are cancer-free. And lung cancer -- which overwhelming evidence indicates is usually caused by smoking -- is not covered. The covered cancers would have to afflict the brain, skin, digestive system, blood or genitourinary system.

And in a May 16 editorial, the News again noted that “lung cancer, usually caused by smoking, is an exception” for which a compensatory claim will not be granted under the new standard.