From: terrie barrie [mailto:tbarrie@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 1:02 PM
To: Maryann.whiteside@state.co.us
Subject: Fwd: Bunning/Bingaman amendment
Dear Ms. Whiteside,
As I will be leaving for DC on 9/3, I thought I'd follow up on the request for the information listed below. What also would be helpful is I could have a letter explaining how the panel of physician's decision carries no more weight in the Colorado State Workers' Compensation system than another other piece of evidence. Thank you for considering my request.
Sincerely,
Terrie Barrie
Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups
970-824-2260
* * *
From: MaryAnn Whiteside
maryann.whiteside@state.co.us>
To: "'terrie barrie'" <tbarrie@yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: Bunning/Bingaman amendment
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 13:43:46 -0600
From my understanding of the amendment, it would just apply the relevant state's reimbursement or indemnity schedule. I would think that our office could just get the info needed and calculate the amounts due under CO law and give that to DOL. That would mean little or no additional training of DOL staff. We have offered several meeting and training to the Office of Workers' Advocacy, so tot he extent that office is involved, I don't think there would need to be additional training there. I would not expect that there would be any charge back for the Colorado
Division of Worker's Compensation doing these calculations - we could, I believe, just absorb the extra work. Once we received the required information from DOL than we should be able to do the calculations quickly. Of course, if the process cannot for some reason be handled as easily as I envision, we may need additional funds.
Colorado has not yet had any case where the physician's panel decision has been offered into any hearing or litigation. As I think you know, most cases seem to be contested and just haven't progressed that far. I don't anticipate that the physician panel decision would be given the weight of an IME for example, but it might be given more weight than other non-expert non-medical evidence depending on the purpose for which it was offered.
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 19:40:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: terrie barrie <tbarrie@yahoo.com>
Subject: Bunning/Bingaman amendment
To: JoAnne Ibarra <joanne.ibarra@state.co.us>
Dear Ms. Ibarra,
You may be aware that last month the US Senate unanimously passed the above amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill. The amendment call for the transfer of responsibility for EEOICPA's Subtitle D claims from DOE to DOL. One issue that will be resolved by this move is that all valid claims will have a willing payer.
One argument against this amendment is the complexity of the payment schedule, i.e. claims will be paid using the individual state's workers Compensation levels. The amendment calls for the state's WC division to assist DOL with the payment schedule.
In all reality, how difficult would this assistance be? Would it be merely transferring Colorado's plan To DOL? What expenses would Colorado Division of Workers Compensation incur and charge back to the Federal government? How much time would it take to train the DOL processors in Colorado statutes?
I will be in Washington after the recess to talk with Congressional staffers about this amendment. Any statistics or information you could give me would be most helpful.
Thank you for your assistance.
Terrie Barrie
Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups
970-824-2260