Despite passage of 2003 law, no claims for medical deaths have been paid

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17704748/

Safety officers denied on-duty death benefits
Despite passage of 2003 law, no claims for medical deaths have been paid

By Bill Dedman
Investigative reporter
MSNBC
Updated: 11:46 p.m. CT March 21, 2007


Bill Dedman
Investigative reporter
• Profile
• E-mail

BOSTON — More than three years after President Bush signed a law granting federal benefits to families of firefighters, police officers and EMTs who die of heart attacks and strokes on the job, not a dollar has been paid. The U.S. Justice Department has denied all 34 claims that have been decided, and has yet to act on more than 200 others, MSNBC.com has learned.

In the Hometown Heroes Act of 2003, Congress said that heart attacks and strokes on the job should be presumed to be line-of-duty deaths, making survivors eligible for federal benefits.


Fire gear rests at the altar during the funeral for Denver Firefighter Lt. Richard P. Montoya, who suffered a heart attack while fighting a house fire in May 2006. Craig F. Walker / AP file

"I think the Department of Justice has intentionally misinterpreted the intent of Congress and the president," the sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Bob Etheridge, D-N.C., told MSNBC.com on Wednesday.

The Department of Justice confirmed on Wednesday afternoon that no claims have yet been paid, while 34 have been denied and about 206 are pending. A spokeswoman said the delays are caused by the complexity of the cases, not by any disagreement with the intent of the law.

The denials come to light as a new study demonstrates that firefighters are at much higher risk of heart attacks when fighting fires or responding to alarms. In the study to be published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health found that firefighters face up to 100 times their normal risk of heart attack while working at a fire.

FULL story and ADDITIONAL video at link.

shits on the very voters that put him there. Especially our civil servents because you see "They serve at his pleasure and when their usefulness is up, he is done with them"!:sarcasm:

He's a national disgrace.