WASHINGTON, DC — Congress is expected to leave town Friday, and as of today the outlook is bleak for thousands of retired United Mine Workers and their families who stand to lose health care benefits after the first of the year.
Because so many coal companies have gone bankrupt, the UMW’s healthcare and pension fund faces insolvency. Only 10,000 active miners remain to support more than 100,000 retirees.
A last-ditch effort to get a measure to fund the benefits into a continuing resolution on the budget has so far resulted in only a token nod for the retired coal workers. The resolution would, on its face, extend those benefits for four months.
But UMW President Cecil Roberts said Congress would force the union to pay for the benefits using money assembled in an account created in the settlement of union claims against Arch Coal, Peabody Energy, and Patriot Coal Companies. Roberts said the money is already spoken for.
“This is money we had in reserve because we were concerned that we did not know, and we still don’t know and nobody knows, what the bills will be and the amount of those bills will be coming in at the end of the year,” Roberts said. “You have to pay those bills.”
Roberts, speaking Wednesday on MetroNews “Talkline” said the bills he’s talking about are ones retirees racked up with medical procedures in late 2016, which will be billed in January or February.
He added the level of funding in the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary fund is about $40 million and wouldn’t begin to cover the cost for the more than 11,000 retirees’ healthcare program.
“The real issue here is not calling for a vote,” Roberts said. “That’s what I find a travesty and the fact that doing nothing costs the taxpayers more than doing something.”
Should the retirees’ healthcare go into insolvency, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation is obligated to pick up the tab, which promises to be a massive cost for the federal government.
The Miners Protection Act, authored by U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) would use money from the Abandoned Mine Land funds to cover those healthcare costs of retirees.
Nearly half of the bill’s 24 sponsors are Republicans.
It’s not a new problem, nor a new solution. Thousands of miners marched at the Capital in September in hopes of pushing Congress to a solution.
“Congress has had this sitting on their plate for four years now,” said Roberts. “You know, if coal miners waited four years to go to work, we wouldn’t have electricity.”
Roberts said part of the stumbling block is non-union coal companies who would like to drive unionized companies out of business to gobble up a greater share of what’s left of the coal market.
Manchin’s bill has strong bi-partisan support and won approval in the Senate Finance Committee. The biggest obstacle, in Roberts’ mind, is congressional leadership — especially U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
McConnell told national reporters on Tuesday that he hopes to include an extension of health-care benefits for the miners in a bigger spending bill that would last through the end of April.
“I’m hopeful and optimistic that will be a part of the (continuing resolution) once it comes to us from the House,” McConnell told reporters at the Capitol.
Manchin was vowing to block any Senate effort to move quickly on unrelated legislation until the miners’ fight is resolved.
“I just want it fixed,” Manchin told national reporters on Tuesday.
“I’m sorry if they want to go home Friday. That’s not gonna happen. These people are losing everything Dec. 31 for the convenience of some of us to go home early. That’s not right.”
Roberts acknowledged there’s still enough time to work out a better deal.
“You’ve got enough votes to pass it in the House and you’ve got enough votes to pass it in the Senate. The answer to that would be yes, but the problem with that is there is not the will on behalf of the leadership to do this.”