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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCoal miners may lose their health insurance
For decades, being a coal miner has come with a deal: Work in dangerous, unpleasant conditions for years, and in exchange, get lifelong health-care benefits and a decent pension. Now, though, part of that deal is jeopardy, as the funds that provide those benefits have dwindled.
When Congress returns next week, legislators will be under intense pressure to fund health-care benefits and pension plans for coal miners that are otherwise set to expire at the end of April. The United Mine Workers Association is urging Congress to pass the Miners Protection Act, which would use money from a fund dedicated to cleaning up abandoned mines to instead shore up former mine workers health care and pension plans, which have been decimated as coal companies have filed for bankruptcy and stopped contributing to health-care and pension funds. America has a moral commitment to the nations retired miners, UMWA president Cecil E. Roberts wrote in a statement last month.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/miners-pensions/523980/
There was also a story on PBS, profiling former miners with black lungs
Some 22,000 retired union miners and their widows will lose their health care if Congress doesnt act. Many have chronic lung diseases. Their union benefit health plan supports clinics like this in Southern West Virginia and helps them pay their medical costs.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/coal-miners-much-needed-health-care-collides-budget-showdown/
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And I can't help it: with all the health problems of mining coals, why would we want to help the ones who want to go back, who voted for the T, and who, of course, expect us to treat them once they do acquire black lungs and cancer? A recent story showed some who say: I like being a coal miner. Fine, go ahead, but don't expect the rest of us to provide for you and for your family.
I am getting tired of all the deploreables who still cheer T even when their "benefits" like meals on wheels get cut.
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)all out of sympathy here.
GWC58
(2,678 posts)Now fuck you, fuck off and just die already!" If Trump didn't say this I'm pretty sure he thought it. Oh sure, I have sympathy. Not for these fools, though! Had a chance to vote for someone who'd have been a fighter for you. You voted against your own best interests. My sympathy is for all of those, us, that voted not for Trump but instead voted for the capable, completely competent candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton!
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)LonePirate
(13,424 posts)That should make them happy, shouldn't it?
nycbos
(6,034 posts)... but to paraphrase Airplane! "They voted for Trump they knew what they were getting into. I say let em crash"
Doreen
(11,686 posts)NO, YOU SHITHEADS, IT IS NOT OBAMA'S FAULT!!! It is YOUR fault. I am so glad you are going to suffer what you voted in for me and others.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)they cast their Votes and as long as it was a Authoritarian White Male,they were all in for that.
Ignorance is Bliss!
There are probably millions of retirees that had their Pensions wiped out in Bankruptcy Courts and never replaced by Congress. If you were lucky,Pension Guarantee Board picked it up at maybe 10%.
LenaBaby61
(6,974 posts)left-of-center2012
(34,195 posts)physioex
(6,890 posts)They are as relevant as the Candlestick Maker.
question everything
(47,479 posts)Runningdawg
(4,516 posts)loose your access to opioids. Imagine a nation of addicts all going cold turkey at one time. Imagine every police dept and hospital trying to deal with that. It's going to get ugly.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)standingtall
(2,785 posts)Who seriously thinks everyone of them voted for Trump? A large group of miners losing their healthcare that covers black lung disease casting their votes for the very same people that once paid doctors to tell them black lung disease didn't exist. I get the anger,but no one should be celebrating them losing their health insurance.
Vinca
(50,271 posts)health care, too. You make choices in life and coal miners apparently made 2 bad ones: being coal miners and voting for Trump.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)As Samuel Johnson once noted, "The prospect of being hanged focuses the mind wonderfully." I wonder if any miners (active or retired) might be receptive to a little counter-campaigning? Send a Democratic star into mining country for a little rally, talk directly to people about how the Affordable Care Act could be helping them, as well as mentioning which party has a better record of supporting unions and working people. Chat with the local stations and newspapers and give them some content without the Fox news filter.
We don't have to win every last vote to carry a state; a swing of 3-5% is enough in a lot of them.
BlueStater
(7,596 posts)Maybe they should have used the brains they have in their heads instead of just mindlessly believing a con man's bullshit.
eleny
(46,166 posts)DFW
(54,379 posts)lindysalsagal
(20,686 posts)We never figure in the cost of medical assistance when we think we're getting a good deal on using coal to keep the lights on.
The fact that the mines are even open makes us all culpable. Instead of closing the borders, close the mines, and start building clean energy industries.
Oh, yeah: And take care of the people who got sick so we could watch Faux snooze and porn.
question everything
(47,479 posts)and she lost their votes.
dembotoz
(16,804 posts)no damns left to give
yortsed snacilbuper
(7,939 posts)he didn't have health insurance.