The Des Moines Association of Professional Firefighters were disappointed this week as the Iowa Senate killed a bill it had advocated in support of.
House File 2482 would have ensured all cancers are covered under the disability coverage of Iowa firefighters. It passed the House 96-0 on Feb. 29, but failed to move in the Senate.
Republican State Sen. Jason Schultz, who was the bill manager in the Senate, said he got the bill with just five business days before the final State Government Committee meeting prior to the second funnel deadline.
“I’ve never seen this asked before and it is an incredibly large expansion,” Schultz said.
The bill deals with 411 disability and pension. Ninety percent of Iowa firefighters are not covered by 411, Schultz said.
“So the expense that is being sold is almost no cost,” he said. “But you know that the rest of the firefighters are going to want the same thing. This is going to be a sky-high cost.”
Currently, 14 of the 200 known cancers are included in the disability coverage.
“Now they want everything covered,” Schultz said.
Unfortunately, it was a big ask with just days remaining before the funnel deadline that would have left 90 percent of Iowa firefighters out.
“In highly emotional situations like that, somebody has got to be the taxpayer’s watchdog and remove emotion and think logically about the situation,” Schultz said.
