The House on Friday morning gave initial approval bills mandating free insurance coverage of cancer screenings for firefighters, and allowing towns to opt out of auto enrollment for school choice tuition payments.
The House Ways and Means Committee had advanced the bills less than an hour before the floor votes.
The screening bill (H 4946) has been a priority for firefighters unions for years. The first screening should be conducted no later than three years after the firefighter starts the job, with subsequent screenings happening every three years under the bill.
The screenings should cover colon, lung, bladder, oral, thyroid, skin, blood, breast, cervical, testicular and prostate cancers. Insurers cannot subject the screenings to co-pays, deductible, coinsurance or out-of-pocket expenses.
Firefighters are more likely to get cancer than the general public. The Occupational Cancer Research Centre attributes higher rates of sickness to greater exposure to cancer-causing hazards through inhalation of smoke, combustion by-productions (particulate matter, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), and so-called forever chemicals (PFAS) used in fire protection gear.
The bill cleared the Ways and Means Committee on a 29-0 vote. Reps. Rodney Elliott, Russell Holmes, Alan Silvia, Chynah Tyler and Samantha Montaño took no action.
School choice
The committee also advanced a new draft of the school choice bill (H 5632) on a 29-0 vote.
For certain towns that don’t run their own middle and high schools, which tend to largely be in more rural areas, municipalities can pay tuition to send their students to a neighboring district’s school.
Under current law, when a student transfers into the town’s elementary school through the state’s school choice program, the tuition agreement extends to cover that student when they reach middle and high school age — and sending towns are still on the hook to pay even if students opt to go elsewhere for secondary school.
This bill would let the town opt out of that automatic extension for school choice students. The community wouldn’t be automatically obligated to pay tuition for those students to attend the partner districts’ middle/high school, if they end up choosing a different path.
There are only four towns in the state for which this bill applies, according to Rep. John Barrett, who filed the original bill for which the Ways and Means draft is based.
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