Coal Companies Nailed for Black Lung Benefits (under changes enacted by health care reform)
Coal Companies Nailed for Black Lung Benefits
(CN) - Widows of coal miners who developed the black lung are eligible for survivors' benefits under changes enacted by health care reform, the 4th Circuit ruled.
Mary Ellen Morgan and Virginia Richardson were both initially denied benefits under the Black Lung Benefits Act because they failed to prove that their husbands died of pneumoconiosis, otherwise known as black lung disease.
Their status changed in 2010, when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act revived a 1978 amendment to the black lung law that allowed coal miners' dependents to collect survivors' benefits as long as the miner was himself eligible at the time of his death - regardless of whether pneumoconiosis was the actual cause of death.
Morgan and Richardson filed new claims with the Department of Labor after the health care law passed, showing successfully that both of their husbands were indeed collecting BLBA benefits when they died.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/07/09/59203.htm