In today’s Baltimore Sun editorial, the Sun stated that SB 646 and its cross file go too far in compensating firefighters for the risk of certain diseases. Excerpts from the editorial state:

The General Assembly can’t keep expanding the list of diseases for which there is a presumption of a work-related cause, no matter how fond they are of public safety workers. It’s tilting the workers’ compensation system beyond the bounds of fairness.

And it’s particularly troubling that lawmakers would seek to do this while simultaneously reducing non-education aid to local jurisdictions — by $600 million over the last three years. If politicians in Annapolis want to reward public safety unions in an election year, let them do it with their own money.

MACo offered 2 amendments to the bill adding brain and esophageal cancers to the presumptions in exchange for language stating that the presumptions are rebuttable.