Coal miners who contracted black lung disease are at risk of losing their healthcare options as mining companies wind down operations.
Join Appalachian Voices for an online overview of the disease, testimony from the afflicted and potential cures for this blemish on public health.
From Appalachian Voices:
“Rates of black lung are at their highest level in decades, and a wave of bankruptcies have enabled some coal companies to quit paying for healthcare and disability benefits for miners with the disease.
“This means that more and more miners must rely on the federal Black Lung Disability Trust Fund to provide these critical resources. But the small tax coal companies pay to finance the trust fund is in jeopardy. Industry lobbyists and some in Congress want to give coal companies a tax break at the expense of miners, even though the trust fund is already billions of dollars in the red.
“This webinar, at 6 p.m. Aug. 11, will feature a panel of coal miners and other advocates discussing the impacts of black lung disease, the policies that are needed to address this public health crisis, and what you can do to support the miner-led grassroots movement for black lung benefits and healthcare.”