Casey praised
You have to give U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., an A for effort.
Casey has been trying for the past year to reduce the backlog of black lung cases and also make the process fairer for coal miners to get compensation for contracting the debilitating disease.
Known formally as pneumoconiosis, the disease is caused by prolonged exposure to coal dust and is most commonly found in coal miners. According to the Labor Department, more than 76,000 miners have died, at least, in part because of the disease since 1968.
Congress passed the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act in 1969, setting up standards to reduce dust in coal mines and creating a Black Lung Disability Trust to help disabled workers and their widows.
However, a heavy backlog of cases has forced miners to wait for care and payments. According to Casey, over the past eight years there’s been a 20 percent decline in the number of law administrative judges hearing the cases, while there’s been a 60 percent increase in the number of black lung claims being filed. In some cases, miners have died from the disease before receiving proper treatment and compensation.
On top of that, the Center for Public Integrity and ABC News investigated the way the government processes these claims and found that Dr. Paul Wheeler, a radiologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine, discovered no signs of black lung disease in the over 1,500 cases he reviewed since 2000.
According to their report, miners reportedly lost over 800 cases based on his X-ray readings, even though other doctors reportedly found black lung in the same X-rays, and biopsies or autopsies repeatedly have proven Wheeler wrong.
To end the backlog, Casey is requesting $10 million to hire additional administrative law judges. He added that the Department of Labor must be certain that any miner affected by Wheeler’s decisions has his case properly re-evaluated and make sure that all claims are handled fairly in the future.
Going even further, Casey and U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., unveiled legislation last week that would require parties in black lung cases to disclose all medical evidence, strengthen criminal penalties for making false statements in the claims process, help miners develop evidence in their claims, and create a system to pay a portion of miners’ legal fees earlier in the litigation process.
“Too many of our nation’s coal miners have been denied basic fairness and justice,” said Casey. “The black lung claims process is fundamentally broken, and this proposal will seek to get it on a better footing.”
The only problem is that most Republicans are opposed to the bill, and since they control the U.S. House of Representatives, the odds of it ever becoming law aren’t good. In fact, things could get worse next year with Republicans expected to win control of the U.S. Senate in the upcoming fall elections.
It’s hard to figure out why more Republican lawmakers aren’t supporting the bill. U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Hollidaysburg, should be backing the measure, since his district was recently extended to include all of Fayette County and parts of Greene and Washington counties, where there are a number of retired coal miners, who already have the disease or could be coming down with it in the future.
Moreover, black lung shouldn’t be a political issue. It’s not like miners are getting a handout. They’re only getting the medical treatment necessary to live out their lives after helping to fill the nation’s energy needs for many years.
Kudos to Casey and others for fighting the good fight on this issue even if the odds are stacked against them and the coal miners they’re fighting for. The hope is that at some point, enough lawmakers will join the fight to make sure that coal miners are treated fairly in dealing with this dreaded disease. That shouldn’t be too much to ask of anyone.