12,500 coal miners’ healthcare in trouble

U.S. Senators from West Virginia, Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), for the passage of the Miners Protection Act to keep 12,500 retired coal miners from losing their healthcare on December 31, 2016.  

The sources of the problem: 60% of their former employers no longer exist, at least on paper, and there are 10,000 active miners contributing to 120,000 retirees’ benefits.

St. Louis-based Peabody bailed out on the miners by spinning off Patriot in 2007 and agreeing in 2013 to pay $310 million into retiree benefits.

When Patriot filed for bankruptcy again in 2015, Peabody said that relieved it from future obligations. By that time, Peabody had paid $165 million.

On a related note, coal entities owned by West Virginia Governor-elect Jim Justice, a billionaire Democrat and the richest man in West Virginia, owe millions of dollars in fines for safety violations.  

 

A National Public Radio analysis concluded that work-loss injury rates are twice the national average and violations more than four times the national average.

As for the Manchin-Capito push, we’ll see. It’s a long way from “we should do this” to actually doing it.