White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest slammed congressional Republicans Thursday for stalling on legislation that would provide long-term backing for the healthcare and pension benefits of United Mine Workers of America members.
“Democrats are ready to solve this problem,” Earnest said. “And it’s not lost on me that Republicans are bragging about the kind of support they have” in coal country while signaling that they “now are prepared to just extend their healthcare for five months.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has included a provision in the continuing resolution that would extend miners’ benefits until April.
But a contingent of coal-state Democrats and Republicans — including Sens. Sherrod Brown, Shelley Moore Capito, Claire McCaskill and Joe Manchin — are urging Senate leadership to discuss a longer-term fix that would bail out the pension fund for years to come.
As many as 22,000 retirees from the coal mining industry will lose their healthcare coverage by the end of the year if some sort of legislative solution is not passed by the end of the session.
Brown, an Ohio Democrat, has threatened to keep the Senate open until Christmas in order to push for something more comprehensive than a five-month fix.
“We’ll have to see whether or not exactly that’s something Republicans in Congress can fix before they send the bill to the White House,” Earnest said on Thursday.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., wrote to President-elect Trump late last month urging him to back the Miners Protection Act in Congress.
The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment about whether Trump does.
