Miner benefit levels are tied to the federal pay scale rather than the cost of living. Therefore, though inflation levels have risen, miners’ black lung benefits have not.
The Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center and Appalachian Voices released a report Wednesday, that shows benefits paid to miners with black lung, and their families, have fallen behind the cost of living and rising inflation.
According to a press release from Appalachian Voices, when the federal black lung benefits program was created in 1969, single miners with zero dependents received $144.50 per month.
The report released today shows that with inflation adjustments that figure today should be $1,204.70. However, miners with zero dependents actually receive $738 per month under current law.
Miner benefit levels are tied to the federal pay scale rather than the cost of living. Therefore, though inflation levels have risen, miners’ black lung benefits have not.
Chelsea Barnes is the legislative director at Appalachian Voices, an environmental organization.
“This report that we’ve released today makes it clear that the status quo is not sustainable for miners with black lung or their families as the cost of food, medicine and rent goes sky high and their benefit levels remain stuck in the past,” Barnes said. “Congress can make a simple fix and disconnect miner benefits from the federal pay scale and tie them to inflation. This is a change that will not break the bank. Instead, it will ensure that coal miners and their families have the basic safety net they deserve to survive.”
The new report finds that at the beginning of 2023, inflation rates hit 8 percent, but benefit levels increased by just 4 percent, leaving many miners and their families to struggle to make up the difference as the price of food, gas and medicine continue to rise.
Rebecca Shelton is the director of policy for Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center and spoke about the struggles miners and their families face without support.
“After sacrificing their health and well-being to power our country, miners and their families struggling with a black lung diagnosis shouldn’t have to pinch pennies to survive,” Shelton said. “But the current law ignores inflation and ignores rising prices, leaving disabled coal miners behind. This report should be a clarion call to Congress that, in their efforts to tackle inflation, they must take urgent action to ensure black lung benefits can truly support the people who have earned and deserve them. Anything less is a failure to support our communities during the ongoing cost of living crisis.”
Robert Bailey was a coal miner for 36 years. He began working in McDowell County, and after it became too hard to breathe, he retired from a mine owned by Patriot Coal in Boone County. Bailey first told his story with WVPB in June 2014. He shared his final story with Inside Appalachia host, Jessica Lilly, on February 15, 2019.
“It’s a struggle just to receive the help that you still need,” Bailey said back in 2014. He was still in the process of a lung transplant. At this time, Bailey was waiting to hear if Patriot Coal’s insurance company, Underwriters Safety and Claims, would approve his appointment for a medical evaluation. He’d already had to cancel one appointment.
Bailey had already been approved for federal black lung benefits by the U.S. Department of Labor and his doctor told him he needed a double lung transplant.
Black lung disease made it difficult for Bailey to breathe. “It’s almost like drowning,” he said.
Credit Jessica Lilly / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Former Coal miner Robert Bailey
As Bailey waded through another bureaucratic process, the clock was ticking, and he was running out of time.
“They told me that as soon as my testing was done that they’d put me on a list,” Bailey explained. “So that tells me that they don’t think that my lungs have very much life left in them.”
Robert Bailey (right) kisses his wife of 45 years, Brenda Bailey (left), after his lung transplant.
A double lung transplant comes with its own set of health challenges. About half of all adults who receive a double lung transplant live just five years after the surgery.
Robert became an advocate for miners with black lung and spoke twice to Congress during Senate hearings, urging lawmakers to act quickly in order to reduce the backlog of black lung cases still needed to be evaluated.
“I’m hoping that through my experience other people could maybe have better results,” he said.
Final Days
About two months ago, Robert learned he had an aggressive form of liver cancer. Doctors gave him weeks to live, and he was put on hospice care when he got home. He wanted to share more of his story.
“I wasn’t really shocked about it really,” Bailey said. “It wasn’t really news that I was looking forward to hearing, but I know it was news that we would have to deal with. But God gave me first breath. He’ll take my last one.”
Robert reflected on his struggle with black lung. He said that doctors told him his liver cancer was probably linked to medications he took as part of his treatment after his lung transplant. Still, he said, these side effects of his transplant wouldn’t have even been an issue if he hadn’t contracted black lung to begin with.
Credit Jessica Lilly / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Robert Bailey, February 15, 2019
Mr. Bailey was a humble man, but he still wanted to share his story. He said he hoped that his suffering, and his death, wouldn’t be in vain.
“Even though I have been blessed with this extra time that I wouldn’t have had, it would be so much better in the long run if the disease itself would be conquered,” he said.
Robert said he hoped his story might help inspire lawmakers to take more steps to improve health conditions for other miners, and perhaps even prevent other coal miners from the same suffering. He pointed out that laws to protect coal miners typically don’t change until miners die, and sometimes not even then.
“Most laws across the nation, most laws [have] been written with blood. I don’t want the things I went through just to drop and no knowledge to be gained.”
As for advice for any young miners today, he said it’s important to do a good job during the day but it’s also important to be able to come back.
“I know a lot of them does a lot of things for the money, and they’re offered a lot of money to meet certain goals. But you can meet a goal today that will take you out of this world tomorrow,” Bailey warned.
West Virginia lawmakers say the new congressional spending plan contains a permanent extension of health care benefits for more than 22,000 retired miners and widows whose medical coverage is set to expire this month.
Republican Rep. Evan Jenkins and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin say it’s in the $1 trillion-plus spending bill to fund most federal operations through September.
In West Virginia, about 8,500 retired miners and their families face loss of benefits if Congress does not act.
Pension benefits have not been included. The miners’ pension and benefit funds have been depleted by coal company bankruptcies.
In 1946, President Harry S. Truman brokered an agreement with the United Mine Workers of America to guarantee miners’ lifetime health and retirement benefits, a move that averted a lengthy strike by unionized workers.
West Virginia’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin says the Senate backs permanently extending health benefits for more than 22,000 retired miners and widows whose medical coverage is set to expire after April.
Manchin says Wednesday the permanent fix will be included in the Senate measure to continue government funding with a vote likely Friday.
He says it will cost $1.3 billion.
Republican U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito says she’s confident the Senate will back a long-term fix.
Both say it doesn’t include miner pension benefits, while House Republican leaders are pushing a 20-month health care extension.
In West Virginia, about 8,500 retired miners and their families face loss of benefits if Congress does not act.
Other states affected include Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia and Alabama.
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin held a packed town hall for miners in Matewan today, assuring attendees that he would fight for health benefits and pensions at risk of running out of money by the end of April.
Union miners who put in 20 or more years were promised lifelong health benefits and pensions decades ago. But as coal companies have gone into bankruptcy, they’ve sought to shed liabilities, including paying into the pension and benefit funds.
Senators Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito have championed a bill called the Miners Protection Act that would take excess money from the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund and repurpose it into shoring up the dwindling pension and benefits fund, but Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has repeatedly blocked attempts to bring the bill to a vote.
“We could pass the bill if Mitch McConnell put it on the agenda,” Manchin said.
In October, 12,500 miners received notice that without Congressional intervention, their benefits would be terminated at the end of the year. On Nov. 1, another 3,600 miners received notices. Then in December, Congress extended the benefits by four months. That provision will run out at the end of April. In the meantime, McConnell has said he will support a bill saving health care benefits, but not pensions. Manchin said, that’s enough for now. If they can pass a bill saving benefits then they can come back with another bill to salvage pensions.
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.
At the age of 38, a coal miner named Mackie Branham Jr. was diagnosed with progressive massive fibrosis, a debilitating and terminal form of an illness that was supposed to be a disease of the past — black lung. But Branham is among many the miners afflicted by a resurgence in the disease, and officials are just beginning to realize the scope of the problem. A review of health clinic records shows roughly a thousand such cases, many times more than federal officials had thought existed.
Credit Benny Becker / Ohio Valley Resource
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Ohio Valley Resource
Mackie Branham, Jr., was diagnosed with the complex form of black lung at age 38.
"The more I talk, the more I get out of breath." – Mackie Branham
Driving into Pike County, Kentucky, the welcome sign tells you that you’ve entered “America’s Energy Capital.” Sheer rock walls line the highway, evidence of a community that’s extremely skilled at cutting through mountains.
Pike County is in the heart of the central Appalachian coalfields, and it’s home to the offices of Dr. James Brandon Crum, a radiologist who often reads the lung X-rays of coal miners. Last July, he reached out the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) because he’d noticed a disturbing trend among his patients.
According to a NIOSH study published this month, Crum found the worst form of black lung disease in 60 patients in a period of 20 months. That’s more cases than the NIOSH black lung surveillance program had identified nationwide since 2010.
One of the study’s co-authors, NIOSH epidemiologist Scott Laney, described the rate of severe black lung at Crum’s clinic as “unprecedented by any historical standard.”
Mackie Branham Jr. is one of the 60. An X-ray of his lungs shows that they’re littered with dark splotches, the scar tissue that’s built up around deposits of coal and rock dust. With his diagnosis, Branham was told he couldn’t go back to working in the coal mines. That meant no more paychecks and the beginning of an extremely difficult period for Branham’s family.
Credit Benny Becker / Ohio Valley ReSource
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Ohio Valley ReSource
The Branham family.
"I can no longer provide for my family." – Mackie Branham
Branham’s work-history lines up with many of the reasons the NIOSH study suggests could be causing the uptick in severe black lung in younger miners. As a self-described “company man,” Branham did whatever the company asked, and that often meant extremely long hours. He often missed birthdays and holidays to pick up extra shifts. He’d sometimes work more than 24 hours straight. Longer hours likely go part of the way to explaining how a 38-year-old can have lungs worse than many retired miners.
The NIOSH report suggests another piece of the puzzle could be the popularity of a technique called slope mining, which involves making a long cut through rock in order to reach a coal seam. In central Appalachia, this usually means cutting through sandstone. Sandstone breaks down into silica dust, which can be much more harmful than coal dust. Branham said he once spent six straight months making this kind of cut, regularly working shifts as long as 16 hours.
The report also suggests that the recent downsizing of the Appalachian coal industry could be playing a major role in this new spike of diagnoses. In today’s coal landscape, laid-off miners have little hope of getting rehired, and that’s created a new incentive for miners to get tested and apply for benefits.
Branham’s black lung is so severe that he wouldn’t be able to work even if there were mines hiring. But he said he’s also affected by the continuing layoffs. As he sees it, laid-off miners have few options besides applying for black lung benefits, and that flood of claims has put him further down the list, forcing him to wait longer before he can hope to receive benefits.
Credit Benny Becker / Ohio Valley Resource
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Ohio Valley Resource
Amber and Mackie Branham.
'I make in a week what he made in two days.' – Amber Branham
Mackie Branham Jr. lives with his wife Amber and their five children. The family has a lawyer, and has been fighting for benefits since March, but they’ve not yet seen a dime. Branham says that his former employer, Alpha Natural Resources, has been fighting him every step of the way.
Coal companies have long been notoriously aggressive in fighting black lung claims. Branham’s condition is pretty clear-cut since he’s disabled and isn’t a smoker. But he still had to get opinions from seven doctors to make it through the process. In the meantime, it’s been hard for his family to get by. He tried to get government benefits, but was turned down for both unemployment and disability. His wife has been working over 60 hours a week as a waitress, and yet Branham said he’d likely be homeless if not for help from his family and a very kind landlord.
"We're having a lot more severe black lung than even our worst nightmares." – Attorney Evan Smith
The NIOSH study found 60 cases of the worst form of black lung diagnosed at Dr. Crum’s clinic since 2015, and characterized that as a “resurgence.” With help from the ReSource, NPR found 392 additional cases in the same period at clinics across the region. Clinics noted over a thousand cases since 2010, which is more than double the number of cases that NIOSH’s black lung surveillance programs have found in the last forty years.
A growing number of miners with the worst form of black lung is likely to create challenges for families, communities, and the region as the whole. Coal companies responsible for paying benefits could face a growing cost in an already difficult market. Taxpayers and the federal government could end up bearing more of the burden.
Credit Howard Berkes / NPR
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NPR
Mackie Branham views a lung X-ray with Dr. James Brandon Crum, who was among the first physicians to note an uptick in black lung diagnoses
Branham’s former employer, Alpha, recently emerged from bankruptcy, and is still responsible for his benefits. In the recent wave of coal bankruptcies, some companies have shed their liabilities to pay black lung benefits. When that happens, any black lung claims that company would have been responsible for are transferred to the federal black lung benefit fund. That’s what happened when Patriot Coal, once a major employer in the region, shifted about $62 million in liabilities onto the black lung benefits fund.
Credit Alexandra Kanik / Ohio Valley Resource
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Ohio Valley Resource
Benefits in Question
The federal government started paying black lung benefits in 1969 after thousands of striking miners demanded that black lung be recognized as a condition that deserved worker’s compensation.
The system has gone through a lot of changes in the years since, including changes to the requirements to receive benefits and how the costs are spread between taxpayers and coal companies. But since the 1980s, there had been one steady trend from year to year: a decrease in the number of living beneficiaries, and the amount of benefits getting paid out each year. That’s what you’d expect given the number of regulations intended to limit exposure to coal dust.
But in the last few years, the number of black lung claims has been increasing.
Credit Alexandra Kanik / Ohio Valley Resource
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Ohio Valley Resource
The new surge in the worst forms of black lung is more evidence that these regulations haven’t been working as well as they were intended to. Coal mines can be an extremely cost-conscious and productivity-oriented environment, and for years there have been widespread and well-documented cases of mine operators cutting corners and ignoring safety regulations.
A new dust rule may finally address some of the issues causing the current uptick, but because black lung is contracted through years of exposure, it’ll be at least a decade before anyone can tell if things have improved.
In the meantime, some in the region are concerned about the future of the federal black lung benefits fund. Among them is Evan Smith, an attorney at the Appalachian Citizen’s Law Center in Whitesburg, Kentucky, and the man behind blacklungblog.com. Smith said the recent bankruptcies and the increase in black lung claims could put the fund at risk.
That’s especially worrying since the fund will also be losing income as the per-ton tax on coal that supports the fund will fall along with declining production. A temporary increase in the tax is also set to expire in December, 2018. Members of Congress have asked for an updated report on the fund’s viability.
Federal black lung benefits have been been a major income source in the Ohio Valley region. Since 2009, Ohioans have received more than $95 million in federal black lung benefits. In Kentucky, the amount is over $230 million. And in West Virginia, federal black lung benefits have paid out more than $300 million. This money goes straight into the pockets of black lung beneficiaries and is one of the biggest cash streams that’s still flowing into some coalfield communities.
A New Barrier
Credit Alexandra Kanik / Ohio Valley Resource
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Ohio Valley Resource
Click to view a flow chart on how to apply for black lung benefits.
Another possible change in the federal black lung program could come if the Republican Congress repeals the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare). One section of the Act, known as the Byrd Amendment, made it easier for miners with at least 15 years of experience to file for black lung benefits, essentially shifting the burden of proving the cause of the disease from the miner to the mining company.
If the Affordable Care Act is repealed and the Byrd Amendment gets struck along with it, it could open a new set of challenges and delays that miners like Mackie Branham Jr. would have to face in trying to claim their black lung benefits.
Hope for Christmas
The benefits process is adversarial and difficult to get through even with the help of a lawyer. Both Mackie and Amber Branham’s fathers have form of black lung, but neither was able to get benefits, and that seems to be a common story.
It looks like Branham’s story is going to be different. On December 13th, the Branhams got some good news. After Branham submitted a diagnosis from seven doctors— including a final one chosen by Alpha Natural Resources— a Kentucky judge awarded Branham his worker’s compensation benefits, and Branham has hope that he’ll get a benefits payment in time for Christmas.
