Apr 23, 2017 5 min read

WAYNESBURG – With their health care benefits set to expire at the end the week, retired coal miners who worked for companies that filed for bankruptcy in recent years, including many retirees from Greene County mines, are obviously nervous.

“If I lose my health insurance, I’m in trouble,” said Jerry McCombs of Carmichaels, a 67-year-old retiree who worked 31 years at Cumberland Mine and retired in 2008, after suffering a shoulder injury on the job.

The injury required multiple surgeries and, since then, McCombs has experienced other health issues. Last year, he had open heart surgery and now he is being tested to determine if he has rheumatoid arthritis.

“With our insurance and Medicare, it’s not too bad, but if I lose my insurance … I don’t know what I’ll do,” he said.

Many of his fellow retirees in the same predicament didn’t put money aside to cover the costs of health care after leaving the workforce because they had been promised lifetime health benefits after so many years of service, McCombs said.

“A lot of people I think are really worried. They have a lot of health problems and this (the threat of losing their benefits) has really put a lot of added stress on them,” he said.

More than 22,600 retired miners who worked at mines under the United Mine Workers banner that filed for bankruptcy in recent years will lose benefits if Congress doesn’t act by the end of the week on the Miners Protection Act. The legislation, pushed by the union and coal-field lawmakers, would shore up the union’s pension and health care program using excess money in the federal Abandoned Mine Land Fund.

The union is optimistic Congress will act, but with various proposals floating around, not to mention the need for Congress to pass a spending bill to keep the government in operation after the end of the month, what might result is sketchy.

“My expectation is we’re going to get something, but I just don’t know what the length is going to be for the health care,” UMW spokesman Phil Smith said last week.

Addressing the union’s pension plan doesn’t appear to be in the mix, he said.

Though the pension can continue to provide benefits for several years, “we need to start getting money into it right away or we’re going to be on the glide path to insolvency,” Smith said.

“We’re still talking to members about doing something with the pension, but all indications we have from both sides of the aisle and both sides of the Hill is all they are going to do right now is act on health care.”

Smith said there has been talk of proposals that would provide only a limited fix for the health care benefits, continuing them for 20 months, for instance.

Another proposal that concerns the union would also include money in the bill to cover the costs of health benefits for retirees of solvent companies still in operation. Companies still in business are required to pay health insurance costs of their union retirees under the 1992 Coal Act. The proposal, the union said, appears to be only an attempt to allow those companies to pass off their obligations to the federal government.

However, this also could use up the available reclamation fund money the union has hoped would be used to shore up the pension plan and cover health care for miners from the bankrupt coal companies.

“It is something we’re very concerned about,” Smith said. “It’s still up in the air; we’re trying to determine what (proposal) is moving forward.”

Alan and Dorothy Vozel of Carmichaels, who both retired from the Emerald mine after many years in the industry, never thought they would lose the lifetime health benefits they were promised.

“Both of us worked in the mines for all those years knowing our pensions and health care were going to be covered for life,” said Alan, who is 70 years old.

“Health care is something that is important; the older you get, the more you realize how important it actually is,” he said.

Both had worked at other UMW mines and finished their careers at Emerald. Alan Vozel retired in 2005 after 34 years in mining; his wife retired one year earlier after 25 ½ years.

The threat to their benefits, and to McCombs’, began last year after Alpha Natural Resources, which owned the two mines, filed for bankruptcy and the bankruptcy court allowed the company to discontinue paying health care benefits for its retired miners.

Alan Vozel said he is not sure what he will do if he and his wife lose their benefits, but they would probably have to purchase some kind of supplemental insurance to pay what Medicare doesn’t cover.

In some situations, Medicare may cover only about 80 percent of the costs, he said. When it’s a bill for say $100,000, which is not unusual for surgeries, the costs to the patient is significant.

“It’s not something you budgeted for in retirement when you worked all those years knowing those things are supposed to be provide for life,” he said.

Vozel said his wife, who recently had major ankle surgery, is worried about the possible loss of the benefits.

He takes a more philosophical view.

“The things you don’t have any control over, there’s no sense in worrying about because whatever happens is going to happen.”

He said, however, he has tried to have some influence on the outcome by calling and lobbying legislators in support of the Miners Protection Act.

But he also thinks it’s unfair that companies can shirk their responsibilities and obligations through bankruptcy. Workers see their health care and benefits cut, while the companies “throw their debt out, reorganize and stay in business.”