Former NFL players denied compensation for brain trauma

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• Amna Nawaz:

  In a landmark 2015 settlement, the National Football League promised to compensate former players who developed dementia and other brain diseases linked to concussions.

  Since then, the NFL has awarded $1.2 billion to more than 1,600 athletes. But a Washington Post investigation found the league saved hundreds of millions of dollars by rejecting payouts to hundreds of retired players suffering from dementia, including many who died.

  Washington Post reporter Will Hobson joins me now to discuss his investigation.

  Will, thanks for joining us.

  You reviewed 15,000 pages of documents related to the cases of 100 former players. You spoke to players and widows and doctors. Before we get into the details, what kind of trend emerged in your reporting about how the NFL viewed and treated these claims?

• Will Hobson, The Washington Post:

  Well, we found that basically that this settlement has its own unique way to define dementia. And that's one big component, that there are players out there, many players out there who are getting diagnosed with dementia, and they obviously have the symptoms of dementia, but they don't meet the settlement standard.

  So, they're getting denied for money and medical care that they and their lawyers thought they were going to get.

• Amna Nawaz:

  So, the league said the players suffering from CTE would get the settlement claims once they develop signs of dementia.

  Your reporting found, of 1,241 former players who filed dementia claims based on diagnoses from their doctors, only about 15 percent were approved. Why so many denials?

• Will Hobson:

  They're — the league contends there's been a lot of fraud, and I do believe that is true. There were a significant number of players who didn't actually have these conditions who attempted to get paid.

  But, as we documented, there are also a lot of guys out there who indisputably had dementia, went through this process, saw their claims get denied, and then died and had CTE confirmed at autopsy.

• Amna Nawaz:

  You do tell the story of Irv Cross, a former NFL star, who was a barrier breaker as well, in terms of being an on-air broadcaster for the league for years.

  What happened to him?

• Will Hobson:

  Mr. Cross, when he went through this process in 2018, he had already been diagnosed with dementia. He was having — at this point, having trouble speaking, maintaining conversation. The doctors even noted that his clothing was soiled that day.

  His wife said she needed to remind him to change his clothes. But he didn't score low enough on cognitive tests for the NFL settlement's definition of dementia. So he was denied, or he was told he didn't qualify for a settlement payment. He ultimately passed away a few years later, what his doctors thought was Alzheimer's disease, but an autopsy found it was actually CTE.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And how common was that kind of case?

• Will Hobson:

  Without being able to review every one of the thousands of denials, we couldn't tell you exactly how common, but the NFL is easily saving hundreds of millions of dollars based on how this settlement was designed.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Will, you have also reported previously on the race-norming practice that was negotiated as part of the settlement, meaning that Black players were treated differently when it came to cognitive assessment than white players, even though Black players make up the majority of the league.

  Did any of that impact these diagnoses and the settlement payments?

• Will Hobson:

  They did.

  I mean, Mr. Cross actually was one example. His — part of the reason he didn't qualify on the cognitive test score front was because his scores were race-normed, which is basically the test scores were curved and adjusted a little bit based on a formula that assumes Black former players naturally perform worse on these cognitive tests than white former players.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And how does the NFL and the representatives respond to everything you reported?

• Will Hobson:

  Well, the NFL contends that the settlement's definition for dementia isn't actually more difficult than the regular one and that the doctors we have interviewed on that point are mistaken.

  They also point out that the settlement is overseen by an independent administrative law firm and a federal judge, and so the NFL isn't directly controlling how a lot of these claims play out.

• Amna Nawaz:

  It's a fascinating investigation. People can read the full report online.

  That is Will Hobson of The Washington Post joining us tonight.

  Will, thank you so much.

• Will Hobson:

  My pleasure. Thanks.

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