Expanded Medicare Benefits for Libby Residents in Health Care Bill

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

Congress may be giving Libby, Montana residents something extra for the holidays.

Buried deep in the massive Senate Health Care bill is a special provision to expand Medicare benefits for residents of Libby, Montana who worked in the former vermiculite mines. Hundreds of people around Libby are sick or dying from asbestos-related disease including Mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs or abdomen.

U.S. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, who has been trying to get more federal help for Libby residents for years, got language added to the bill as part of his agreement to vote for it. “The people of Libby were poisoned and have been dying for more than a decade,” Baucus told The New York Times. “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 needed it most.”

The Senate is scheduled to vote on the bill this week.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took the extraordinary step of declaring a public health emergerncy in the town of Libby — the first such declaration it has ever made.