Asbestos companies and insurers have agreed to a proposed $114 billion asbestos fund, which would eliminate all asbestos litigation and instead compensate asbestos cancer victims from a set schedule based on their disease.
The office of Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist brokered the plan, after support for an asbestos bill eroded among Republicans, who questioned whether insurers were being asked to bear too much of the cost.
“I am very encouraged by the agreement reached between the insurers and the defendant companies relating to financial contributions to the trust fund. While many details still remain to be worked out, clearly this is a significant and meaningful step forward between two major parties to the larger asbestos negotiations. It is imperative that for any arrangement to be successful there needs to be bipartisan support. I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in the coming days to achieve that consensus.”
But the proposal still needs to win the support of labor unions.
“We haven’t been involved in any of these discussions. We’ll keep an open mind, but it’s extremely unlikely at this point that anything will be worked out,” said Jonathan Hiatt, general counsel to the AFL-CIO labor federation.
(via Reuters)
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