Senate Health Reform Bill Provides Medicare for Libby

Among the “sweeteners” added to the Senate health care reform bill is a proposal to extend Medicare for certain individuals exposed to environmental health hazards. And not just any environmental health hazards; in particular, health hazards that were recognized as a public health emergency in a declaration issued by the federal government on June 17. Yes, that would be Libby, Montana.

Libby was contaminated over a period of several decades by mining operations of the W.R. Grace Company. The company took vermiculite laced with asbestos out of the ground near Libby, and in the process asbestos was scattered for miles throughout the community. Hundreds of people have died of mesothelioma and other deadly diseases as a result of the asbestos exposure in Libby, and thousands have been diagnosed with asbestos-related disease.

The plight of the people of Libby was ignored for decades. The EPA began a cleanup in 2000, which is still in progress, but people were, and still are, getting sick, and many have lost homes and businesses because of the contamination. It was not until this past June that any substantive help was appropriated for the people of Libby — a “public health emergency” was issued, and money was set aside to provide some health care to stricken Libby residents.

Enter Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Baucus held the Senate health care reform bill in his committee for a long time, and he had a big hand in crafting the bill. Some feel Baucus’s dithering weakened the bill; others think his influence made it more cost-effective. Even so, Baucus made noises about not supporting the bill until he was awarded some concessions, and these included the Medicare provision for Libby.

Baucus told Robert Pear of the New York Times: “The people of Libby were poisoned and have been dying for more than a decade. New residents continue to get sick all the time. Public health tragedies like this could happen in any town in America. We need this type of mechanism to help people when they need it most.”

One person’s blessing is another’s boondoggle. People opposed to the health care bill call the Libby provision “pork.” One might argue that specific provisions like this one, however beneficial, should not be part of the federal health care reform bill. But let’s look at the bigger picture.

The party that caused the contamination, the W.R. Grace Company, has largely escaped penalty. This past year the company and three former executives were acquitted of knowingly causing the deadly contamination and covering up their actions. The company did, for a time, pay for the health care of Libby residents who were diagnosed with asbestos-related disease, but the company’s efforts fell far short of what was needed.

The bottom line is that in the case of environmental and public health disasters such as Libby’s, we as a nation have two choices — ignore them, and let the victims fend for themselves, or step up to take care of the problem. And taking care of the problem means somebody’s got to pay for it, either private business or taxpayers.

— Barbara O’Brien

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 12:28 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.