Retired miners lament Trump’s silence on imperiled government health plan
UNIONTOWN, Pa. — Donald Trump made coal miners a central metaphor of his presidential campaign, promising to “put our miners back to work” and look after their interests in a way that the Obama administration did not.
Now, three months into his presidency, comes a test of that promise.
Unless Congress intervenes by late April, government-funded health benefits will abruptly lapse for more than 20,000 retired miners, concentrated in Trump states that include Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Many of the miners have serious health problems arising from their years in the mines.
In mining areas like Uniontown and surrounding Fayette and Greene counties, which Trump carried 2-to-1, it is an upsetting and potentially costly prospect.
“It’s just a terrible, terrible feeling,” said one of the retirees, David VanSickle, who spent four decades at work in the mines and has black lung. “I think about that 25 times a day.”
The president has offered no public comment on the issue, even as he has rolled back regulations on mine operators, an omission that has not escaped the notice of VanSickle and other retired miners.
“To me, that was kind of a promise he did make to us,” VanSickle said about Trump, whom he supported last fall. “He promised to help miners, not just mining companies.”
Responsibility for the retirees’ health plans has increasingly shifted to the federal government in recent years, as struggling coal companies have shed their liabilities in bankruptcy court. Congress voted last fall to finance benefits for a large group of retirees for several months, but House and Senate Republican leaders have yet to agree on a longer-term solution.
The benefits can easily mean the difference between a middle-class retirement and economic hardship, since many retired miners are too young to qualify for Medicare. Others have chronic or debilitating health problems that would require expensive supplemental coverage — currently provided by the retiree plan — even with the Medicare benefit.
Last fall, VanSickle priced out a private insurance plan that would provide roughly comparable benefits for him and his wife, who takes about a dozen separate medications to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. The estimates came in at $1,500 to $1,800 per month.
(VanSickle and his wife could be eligible for thousands of dollars in subsidies if they purchased insurance under the Affordable Care Act, said Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation. But such a plan would most likely be more limited, and Trump still maintains that he wants to undo the program.)
The miners typically regard their health care with a sense of moral entitlement, having frequently passed up higher pay during contract talks in order to top off their benefits.
A White House spokeswoman declined to comment.