STAND. COM. REP. NO. 3653

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: H.B. No. 1889

H.D. 1

S.D. 2

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2024

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Judiciary and Ways and Means, to which was referred H.B. No. 1889, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO WORKERS' COMPENSATION MEDICAL BENEFITS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to expand workers' compensation medical benefits for firefighters to include coverage for breast cancer and cancer of the female reproductive organs.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, Disability and Communication Access Board, State Fire Council, Honolulu Fire Department, ILWU Local 142, Chamber of Sustainable Commerce, and one individual.

Your Committees find that over the last decade, the fire profession has experienced an increase in firefighter deaths related to cancer, with female firefighters developing a wide variety of cancers and at an earlier age than most women. Your Committees further find that there are approximately forty female firefighters out of a total of nearly two thousand one hundred active firefighters in the State. Although this is not a high percentage of the total, your Committees believe that female firefighters deserve to be covered due to anatomical differences. This measure will provide female firefighters and their family with the financial and moral support they require if affected by certain cancers.

Your Committees have amended this measure by making it effective upon its approval.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Judiciary and Ways and Means that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1889, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1889, H.D. 1, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Judiciary and Ways and Means,

________________________________ DONOVAN M. DELA CRUZ, Chair

________________________________ KARL RHOADS, Chair