Baucus, Sebelius face criticism for expansion of Medicare to asbestos victims
Montana Senator Max Baucus worked hard to include a provision in the recently passed healthcare reform that provides Medicare to anyone with an asbestos-related disease in Libby, Montana, a city that has been ravished by the deadly mineral from the nearby, now-closed W.R. Grace vermiculite mine. However, rather than be thankful for the bill's provision, many Montana residents are upset with the legislation as a whole.
According to the Associated Press, about 3,000 Montana residents attended a town hall-style meeting in Libby with Baucus and federal Secretary of Health of Human Services Katherine Sebelius. Many of the attendees were upset with the passage of healthcare reform.
One woman in attendance asked Baucus where in the Constitution is it required that citizens purchase health insurance. Another person at the meeting, retired nurse Judy Mattot, wanted to know if either the senator or cabinet member had read the entire healthcare bill, said the AP.
"How can you pass something that you don't know what's in it?" she said, reports the news source.
The W.R. Grace mine in Montana brought a great deal of asbestos to the surface in the Libby area before it closed down in 1990. Since then Libby has become the deadliest Superfund site in the history of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with about 400 people dying of mesothelioma, asbestosis and other asbestos-related illnesses, according to the AP.
To help combat this issue, the EPA declared a health emergency in the city last year and Baucus put in the provision for the unprecedented Medicare benefits, which includes screenings and treatments.
"This is a new thing for Social Security," Nancy Berryhill, the administrator in charge of the program, told the Missoulian in May. "No other group like this has ever been selected to receive Medicare."
Baucus defended the part of the healthcare bill at the recent town hall meeting.
"Mark my words, several years from now, you're going to look back and say, 'Well, that wasn't so bad after all,'" the Montana Democrat said.
Still Mattot, the ex-nurse, said she was not so sure that her neighbors who are suffering from asbestos-related diseases deserve the Medicare benefits.
"Yes, Libby does have a problem. But with the amount of cleanup going on, Libby should be one of the cleanest places in the United States," she told the AP after the town hall meeting.
Not all Libby-area residents are skeptical about the Medicare expansion. Gayla Benefield was one of the original advocates that brought the problems affecting Libby to the nation's attention and said that the new program expands coverage beyond that offered by W.R. Grace's program.
"To me this is one of the dreams that I had, that medical care would be available to future generations. W.R. Grace has provided our medical care since 2002, but they could stop that medical anytime. So it's been a very uncomfortable situation," she told the news source.
Sebelius said she was not in Montana to defend healthcare reform, but instead there to make sure that the Medicare expansion was going along properly.
"I'm here to make sure the program on the ground is working the way it's supposed to work," she said at the town hall meeting.
For his part, Baucus, who said that more still needs to be done to help asbestos victims, did not back down from his stance that the provision was important.
"It's good to see justice after injustice for so many years," he said.
The World Health Organization estimates that 107,000 people die each year around the world from malignant mesothelioma, asbestosis, lung cancer and other asbestos-related illnesses.