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Black lung program is safe

Thousands of people who had to retire from coal mining jobs after they contracted black lung rely on a federal program that provides them some income and health care benefits. So do the families of those who died too soon because of the disease, formally known as pneumoconiosis.

One of the most effective tactics to stir up public disapproval of a proposed national health care program would be to claim it would eliminate the black lung program. That is precisely what some opponents of the proposal, being considered in the House of Representatives, have done.

There is a flaw in their fear-mongering, however: Black lung benefits would not be eliminated by the proposed new health care law.

U.S. Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., was concerned enough about the black lung program to investigate the reports. He asked the Congressional Research Service to determine how the proposed American Health Care Act would affect black lung benefits.

“There are no provisions in the American Health Care Act that would repeal or otherwise affect” black lung benefits included in the current Obamacare law, the CRS responded.

To be perfectly clear: Obamacare did make slight changes in the black lung benefits law. Those changes would remain in effect. Miners suffering from black lung and their survivors would not lose benefits if the new law is enacted.

Active and retired miners should be furious, then, that critics of the proposed new health care plan attempted to use them as pawns in the controversy.

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