Printable Version
Tell a friend
Del.icio.us
Digg
StumbleUpon
Technorati
Google
Yahoo
more...
Steel Workers Push for Better Health Program for Former Federal Nuclear Plant WOrkers
Monday, October 29, 2007
(Press Associates, Inc.)
By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff
Writer
ROCKY FLATS,
Colo. (PAI)--Imagine walking around with
a
cancer so bad that your doctor says your
diseased
liver weighs 35 pounds--and that
exposure to nuclear
radiation from the years
when you worked for the
federal government
at a nuclear weapons facility
caused
it. But the feds decline to pay your
medical
bills.
Or
imagine a list of diseases starting with
stomach
ailments and other cancers, as long
as your arm,
putting you on permanent total
disability and costing
you at least $500
month for medicines. But you’re
a
former nuclear worker, too, and the feds
agree to pay
only partially--13% of the
costs--for doctors to treat
one of the
ailments, and nothing for the
medicines.
This is the nightmare
Janine Anderson and George
Barrie go through
every day, as do tens of thousands
of their
colleagues. Anderson, Barrie and the
others
worked at the federal
government’s Rocky Flats,
Colo.,
nuclear weapons complex and other
similar facilities
nationwide, including
Hanford, Wash., and Oak
Ridge,
Tenn.
And
all are now disabled from their
constant
long-term exposure to deadly
radiation on their jobs,
as they handled
dangerous materials while helping
craft
weapons designed to defend the U.S. during
the
Cold War. There’s a federal
entitlement program,
which Congress approved
and President Clinton signed
in 1999, to pay
for their medical bills, tests,
treatment,
drugs and lost wages.
But instead, what the group, represented
by the Steel
Workers--who now include the
old Oil, Chemical and
Atomic Workers that
represented the nation’s
nuclear
plant workers--told lawmakers on
Oct. 23 is that the
entitlement program
isn’t working.
Meanwhile, as
they struggle with mountains
of
paperwork--Anderson had to find and file
4,000 pages
of medical records, several
times, because the Labor
Department kept
losing them--and reluctant
officials,
workers get sicker and dozens
have died.
Part of
the problem, they testified to senators
and
at a later press interview, is that so
much
information about the nuclear material
they worked
with is classified that they
can’t even get accurate
or complete
lists of the chemicals they were
exposed
to.
And though the feds caused
the illnesses, the
government put the burden
of proof on workers to show
they deserve the
payments, not the other way
around.
“It’s a very tedious
process,†Anderson added in
the
interview. “The Department
of Energy,†which now runs
the former
nuclear weapons sites “and the
Department
of
(continued)
Press
Associates, Inc. (PAI) -- 10/29/2007
(nuke
workers, cont. -2)
Labor†which
runs the compensation program “have
been
disrespectful of the
claimants.
â€There seems to be no care for
us,†she added. “They
say
they are helping. I haven’t seen
it yet.â€
The
problem the former atomic workers face is
not
just the illnesses--as bad as those
are--but also
being forced into total
disability and/or low-paying
jobs, if any at
all. At least one family had
to
declare bankruptcy to pay its
breadwinner’s medical
bills suffered
due to exposure to the radiation and
other
toxic hazards at Rocky Flats.
Another has
just refinanced its house for the
third
time, to try to get more money for
medical treatments.
“I went from a job that paid
$15-$20 an hour†at
Rocky Flats
“to one that pays $1,000 a month,
if
that,†says Barrie.
“And the bills keep piling up.
My
Social Security payments go to doctors,
hospitals,
co-pays and meds,†he
added. His wife’s income
takes
care of ordinary expenses.
Terrie Barrie has become
an advocate for
workers.
The
government is supposed to, with the program
for
the former nuclear workers, pick up the
medical tab
and the lost wages. It
often does not, the
workers
testified.
There’s also the emotional wear
and tear on workers
and families.
Speaking at the press conference
by
speakerphone, Laura Schultz, another
Rocky Flats
worker, described months on end
in hospitals for her
multiple illnesses,
with her husband Jeff--also an
ex-Rocky
Flats worker--handling all the paperwork
and
hassles with the
feds.
Schultz has
part of her bills paid now by Medicaid,
the
federal health care program for the poor.
“But do
you realize how much testing
we go through?†she
asked, reeling off
a list of medical tests for a wide
range of
radiation-caused ailments. “I
can’t spend
the rest of my life like
this,†she said
chokingly.
And some
ex-nuclear workers are even worse off,
Jeff
Schultz added. Those were the
workers who were not
directly employed by
the feds at Rocky Flats, Oak
Ridge, Hanford
and elsewhere, but were employed by
private
contractors hired by the government to
perform
some of functions at the
sites.
“They’re left without
retirement pay, without health
insurance and
now they’re sick, too†with the
same
illnesses, Jeff Schultz said.
“One of them had to
mortgage his house
to the hilt, and then file
for
bankruptcy. Another committed
suicide because he
didn’t want to be
a burden on his
family.â€
The
nuclear workers, aided by USW and led by
the
activists--Barrie and his
wife
(continued)
Press Associates, Inc.
(PAI) -- 10/29/2007
(nuke workers, cont.
-3)
and Anderson--are lobbying for new
changes in the law
that is supposed to aid
them.
The key
change would be to shift some of the
burden
of proof off the workers’
shoulders, making it
theoretically easier to
get the money the government
promised
them. That would be done by
inserting a
provision in the law saying that
if not enough
evidence could be amassed
after a specific period of
time--say, a
year--of an individual worker’s
exposure,
the worker would nonetheless be
declared eligible
for
aid.
There may
be hope for congressional help: Sen.
Jeff
Bingaman (D-N.M.), chaired the Senate
hearing on the
illnesses and the problems
the workers face. He has a
big atomic
facility in his state--Los
Alamos
Laboratory--and was
sympathetic. So was the
top
Republican, Tennessee Sen. Lamar
Alexander, whose
state includes Oak
Ridge.