Asbestos Victims Could Benefit from Health Care Bill

While legislators in Washington work out the details to the health care reform bill, the townspeople in Libby, Montana are keeping a close eye on the proceedings. US Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), is one of the leaders in the fight to create new federal health care reform legislation. In an effort to aid the citizens of his home state, many of whom have been stricken by mesothelioma and other asbestos-related lung diseases, Senator Baucus contributed a clause to the Senate's variation of the bill that would allow for Medicare insurance to cover patients that have incurred health risks due to environmental contamination in their workplaces.

The provision that Senator Baucus included in the thousand-page bill applies directly to residents in regions that have been designated as public health emergency locations. The Libby asbestos site received such a declaration this past summer, the only location to receive such a designation in the history of the United States up to this point. Senator Baucus's provision never references Libby by name and is difficult to pinpoint among the other earmarks and clauses mentioned in the massive piece of legislation.

After the Senate voted to approve the measure, Senator Baucus released a statement pledging his support to the people affected by the asbestos contamination at the Libby site. He said that the town's residents were "poisoned" by the asbestos fibers produced from the area's vermiculite mines. He also noted how Libby was the first and, thus far, only town in the country to receive a declaration of a public health emergency due to the high incidence rates of mesothelioma.

Since 1980, several hundred residents of Libby have died due to complications from asbestos exposure, along with another two thousand who have suffered from lung disease and other respiratory disorders. According to numerous scientific studies conducted in the area, the culprit appears to be a form of asbestos called tremolite, extracted from the region's vermiculite mines that served as the town's primary employer.

During the years that the mines were in operation, mine operators reportedly did not provide workers with protective gear or breathing filters that would have prevented them from inhaling asbestos fibers. As a result, not only did mine workers take in the toxic substance, but many of them carried the fibers on their clothes, which they brought into their homes and inadvertently exposed their families.

Several cancer research studies have established a positive link between asbestos exposure and the incidence of pleural mesothelioma, a form of cancer that attacks the fluid lining of the lungs. The nature of the exposure process is such that many patients do not exhibit symptoms of the disease until years, even decades, after the initial exposure. This process is one reason that the incidence rates for the disease continue to rise; even years after the mines have shut their doors.

Senator Baucus said that the impetus behind his provision in the bill is to provide the needed funds for diagnostic tools and patient care under Medicare that are not currently available to affected residents. He also said that such public health disasters could occur anywhere in the country and that the additional Medicare coverage is needed to help other areas that could suffer a similar fate.

Sources: Flathead Beacon, Wired PR News

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