Workers' Comp for Battle Wounds
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, July 25, 2007 | 09:15 AM
By Tom Shoop | Wednesday, July 25, 2007 | 09:15 AM
Imagine you're a civilian Army employee working in Iraq, riding alongside service members in your Humvee when it's hit by a roadside bomb. You receive initial treatment for your severe injuries, but then you're turned away from military hospitals for ongoing treatment. Instead, you're told to work through the Labor Department's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, where you find out that your war wounds don't really match any of its bureaucratic workplace injury codes. You then embark on an odyssey of trying to find doctors in the civilian health care system with experience treating your injuries.
That's what happened to Mike Helms, a counterintelligence expert with the Army's 902nd Military Intelligence Group, the Washington Post reports today. Helms' description of his plight is heartbreaking:
"I did not have an 'accident' while working. I was subjected to an offensive attack by an enemy of the U.S. government who attempted to kill me. Why am I under workers' comp if workers' comp does not recognize a combat injury?"
Helms, of course, is hardly the first federal employee to run into roadblocks at OWCP. As Brian Friel reported in Government Executive in Sept. 2002:
Survivors of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, continue to deal with the workers' compensation office today. Many survivors report that dealing with OWCP has been a roller coaster ride: Responsive, competent claims examiners ease some interactions, while nonresponsive, incompetent examiners mar others.
Comments
I can beat that, I discovered emails by OWCP employees slandering my family and myself; someone in my Agency upper management vandlised my wheelchair and both my agency and OWCP has lied to US Senators.
Gary Adams | Sunday, August 26, 2007 | 07:00 PMAbsolutely no one should be put through the misery that the Department of Labor OWCP puts injured federal employees through. It is one of the most corrupted, inhumane processes imaginable. It doesn't matter if you are the average federal employee or someone who served their country in a war zone.
The Internet has many stories of injured federal workers and their families who had their savings drained and lost their homes fighting for their lawful rights.
Let's put the blame where it belongs. The Federal Employee's Compensation Act was created by our Congressional representatives to cover up the multitude of lawsuits against the Department of Labor. Before the FECA, injured federal workers were suing and, usually, winning their cases. The federal courts were being inundated with accounts of wrongful denials and just plain fraud by OWCP. The FECA stopped the lawsuits and gave DOL-OWCP cart blanc to proceed without accountability.
The problem continues, our lawmakers know what's going on and refuse to do anything about it. I feel sorry for Mr. Helms and ashamed of our Congress.
Robert M. | Friday, July 27, 2007 | 06:12 AMAbsolutely they should receive the same care but in a civilian hospital. We already have too many civilians (congressmen) trying up Bethesda when we have war vets that aren't being taken care of
dan ketter | Thursday, July 26, 2007 | 12:13 PMA law enforcement agency I worked at faced similar issues with OWCP when officers were injured while making arrests. One of the requirements from OWCP was to initiate civil action (at your own expense)to recover medical costs from the responsible party. Unfortunately most of the "responsible parties were "judgement proof" because they had no money and you could not get an attorney to handle a civil suit against someone without the funds to pay a judgement.
A Faceless Bureaucrat | Wednesday, July 25, 2007 | 01:21 PMThousands of civil servants have volunteered to go to every far away conflict for decades. They are not front line troopers but a few do get killed or hurt.
They should receive the same care as the green suiters.
Wise Old Owl | Wednesday, July 25, 2007 | 11:02 AMABOUT THIS BLOG
Government Executive Editor Tom Shoop takes a look at news and events affecting the federal bureaucracy, from the perspective of a longtime observer of government.
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