Scarring of the lungs caused by years of coal dust inhalation, more formally known as coal workers’ pneumoconiosis or black lung, leaves miners at high risk of developing serious complications from COVID-19. Now the mining industry is trying to cut its payments to the fund that supports those affected.
While miners with black lung struggle during the pandemic, the coal industry is seeking to use the crisis to its advantage, cutting pay-outs to the federal black lung funds.
Last month the National Mining Association asked Congress to decrease the excise tax that coal companies pay toward the fund by 55%. The federal black lung program, which pays out benefits to former coal miners diagnosed with the condition , has already faced financial problems in recent years in part due to coal companies filing for bankruptcy and shifting millions of dollars in liabilities onto the government.
Some 25,000 former coal miners in the US currently rely on black lung benefits, and hundreds of former miners will die trying to obtain their benefits, leaving their widows with nothing.
At least one in 10 US coal miners who worked in mines for 25 years or more are diagnosed with black lung. In Appalachia, those rates climb to as many as one out of every five. Appalachia experienced a surge in black lung cases in recent years, as US cases hit a 25-year high in 2018.
Black lung clinics across Appalachia have shut down due to coronavirus, with doctors insisting patients stay at home and conduct check-ups by phone or internet. New claims for federal black lung benefits and state exams have been put on hold.
“This extra impairment would be enough to kill them which is why we’re trying to be so careful in not having them in the clinic and encouraging them to stay at home, stay away from people so they don’t get it because it would be much more difficult for someone like that to recuperate, if it’s even possible,” said Debbi Wills, a black lung clinic coordinator in West Virginia.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/19/ive-already-got-infected-lungs-for-sick-coal-miners-covid-19-is-a-death-sentence
While miners with black lung struggle during the pandemic, the coal industry is seeking to use the crisis to its advantage, cutting pay-outs to the federal black lung funds.
Last month the National Mining Association asked Congress to decrease the excise tax that coal companies pay toward the fund by 55%. The federal black lung program, which pays out benefits to former coal miners diagnosed with the condition , has already faced financial problems in recent years in part due to coal companies filing for bankruptcy and shifting millions of dollars in liabilities onto the government.
Some 25,000 former coal miners in the US currently rely on black lung benefits, and hundreds of former miners will die trying to obtain their benefits, leaving their widows with nothing.
At least one in 10 US coal miners who worked in mines for 25 years or more are diagnosed with black lung. In Appalachia, those rates climb to as many as one out of every five. Appalachia experienced a surge in black lung cases in recent years, as US cases hit a 25-year high in 2018.
Black lung clinics across Appalachia have shut down due to coronavirus, with doctors insisting patients stay at home and conduct check-ups by phone or internet. New claims for federal black lung benefits and state exams have been put on hold.
“This extra impairment would be enough to kill them which is why we’re trying to be so careful in not having them in the clinic and encouraging them to stay at home, stay away from people so they don’t get it because it would be much more difficult for someone like that to recuperate, if it’s even possible,” said Debbi Wills, a black lung clinic coordinator in West Virginia.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/19/ive-already-got-infected-lungs-for-sick-coal-miners-covid-19-is-a-death-sentence
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