Library Collections: Document: Full Text

Several other laws also affect disabled persons and the social security disability system. They are as follows:

FEDERAL COAL MINE HEALTH AND SAFETY ACT OF 1969 -- BLACK LUNG

During consideration of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, it was brought out in hearings that, not more than a handful of States recognize pneumoconiosis (black lung) as a disease which would make miners eligible for workmen's compensation. Moreover, in States where this disease was recog-nized the standards for diagnosis were very strict. In the hearings before the Select Subcommittee on Labor of the House Committee on Education and Labor on H.R. 11476 in June and July of 1969, page 9, representatives of the United Mine Workers of America stated that since 1949 only six cases of pneumoconiosis had been awarded workmen's compensation benefits in West Virginia, and in all of these cases awards were granted only because autopsies showed that all had died from heart failure due to massive concentrations of coal dust in the lungs.

Legislation to compensate the Nation's miners from black lung, under Fed-eral auspices, was developed in both Houses of Congress. The Senate amendment for disability benefits was introduced on the floor. It called for the Secretary of HEW to develop interim standards for "black lung" disability; however, the bill clearly intended benefits for complicated pnuemoconiosis only. The Secretary was then to enter into agreements with the States to receive and adjudicate black lung claims based on the disability standards published. The Federal Government was to pay all black lung benefits through fiscal year 1971. The States were to assume half of the burden in fiscal year 1972 and fiscal year 1973. After that time the Federal Government would be out of the program. A pro-vision for benefits for widows and dependents was also included in the Senate bill.

The House version was reported out of the House Education and Labor Committee. It also called for payments to be made to miners who had com-plicated pneumoconiosis only. The Secretary of Labor was to enter into agree-ments with State governors in order for the States to process and adjudicate claims. The Secretary of Labor would make grants to the States to pay the claims. If an agreement could not be reached with any State the Secretary would pay the claim directly. No claim could be considered unless it was filed within 1 year after an employed miner received his first chest x-ray or was afforded an opportunity to have one. A system for giving every miner a chest x-ray every 6 months was established by the bill. An unemployed miner would have to file for benefits within 3 years after enactment, a widow 1 year after her husband's death. These time limits were meant to restrict payments to miners who already had pneumoconiosis rather than future victims.

In conference it was decided that this program could best be administered by the Secretary of HEW using "the personnel and procedures he uses in determining entitlement to disability insurance benefit payments under section 223 of the Social Security Act." -35- By regulation, disability decisions for black lung payments were made only in the central office in Baltimore instead of the State Federal decisionmaking system used for the regular section 223 disability cases. Evidence for black lung was gathered at the State level. Thus, the Secretary of HEW had ultimate responsibility for the program, the so-called part B payments. Under the law, as it was passed, the Secretary of HEW was to publish regulations for determining disability under black lung. He was given the following guidelines for such regulation:

-35- Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, sec 413(b).

1. if a miner who is suffering or suffered from pneumoconiosis was employed for 10 years or more in one or more underground coal mines, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that his pneumoconiosis arose out of such employment ;

2. if a deceased miner was employed for 10 years or more in one or more underground coal mines and died from a respirable disease, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that his death was due to pneumoconiosis; and

3. if a miner is suffering or suffered from a chronic dust disease of the lung which (A) when diagnosed by chest roentgenogram, yields one or more large opacities (greater than one centimeter in diameter) and would be classified in category A, B, or C in the International Classifica-tion of Radiographs of the Pneumoconioses by the International Labor Organization, (B) when diagnosed by biopsy or autopsy, yields massive lesions in the lung, or (C) when diagnosis is made by other means, would be a condition which could reasonable be expected to yield results de-scribed in clause (A) or (B) if diagnosis had been made in the manner prescribed in clause (A) or (B), then there shall be an irrebuttable pre-sumption that he is totally disabled due to pneumoconiosis or that his death was due to pneumoconiosis, as the case may be. -36-