| Offices : Beckley • Charleston • Fairmont • Martinsburg • Washington, DC | E-mail Senator Rockefeller |
September 20, 1999
ROCKEFELLER MEETS WITH RETIRED MINERS TO DISCUSS HEALTH BENEFITS
MIDWAY -- U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) met with retired miners today to discuss his fight to protect miners’ benefits. Rockefeller is working to ensure that health care benefits for retired miners and their families remain solvent. Talking with Rockefeller at the home of Zeno Sparks today were Harold Hayden from UMWA District 17 and Carl Adkins and Calvin Moran, local retired mineworkers.
“The health benefit fund for retired miners and their families is in trouble, and we’ve got to move quickly to provide funding for the future. Along with the UMWA and coal companies, I have been working on a plan that would address the fund’s long-term problems,” said Rockefeller.
Rockefeller continued, “The plan we have come up with — which is supported by the unions and the coal companies — would transfer interest money from the mine-clean up fund into the health benefits fund. The bottom line is that the money is available — but we need the President and Congress to agree to make it happen. This has been a difficult case to make over the last year, but I feel like we are close to making people realize that health benefits are at stake and we must work to secure them.”
Rockefeller wrote the Coal Act in 1992 which set up the Combined Benefits Fund to guarantee health benefits for retired miners. The fund covers the cost of health care expenses for retirees and their widows even if their former employer has gone out of business. Because of recent court cases and the rising cost of health care, income into the Fund will soon not be sufficient to pay benefits, making additional sources of money critical if the federal government is to honor its commitment.
“I am working hard to get members of Congress and the Clinton Administration to agree to the plan. Congress made a commitment to miners in 1992 when they passed my legislation which restored the health benefit fund. I hope all West Virginians will join me in pushing Congress to do what is necessary to protect health benefits for retired miners and their families,” Rockefeller said.
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