Many of the workers and retirees affected by the Horizon Natural Resources bankruptcy relied upon their company medical coverage to cover the costs of doctor visits, breathing treatments for black lung disease and prescription drugs for themselves and families.
Having medical coverage is an essential part of most working families and retirees lives...imagine one day the company you are working for or retired from decides they too will file bankruptcy and leaving you without any health care plan for you or your family.

Under existing bankruptcy law, a company's employees are considered unsecured creditors, the group that is last to receive any share of a bankrupt company's assets.

Several of Horizon's miners are reporting losses as high as $80,000 being robbed from their pensions (source Williamson Daily News).

Imagine all you have worked for your entire life being cut drastically because of the company you worked for deciding to file bankruptcy and federal laws limit the amount of protection your pension is guaranteed.

If action is not taken, your retirement could be next.

Along with not having your medical coverage honored, your now reduced pension, savings and social security will be what you will have to use to pay for doctors visits, medical treatment, cost of living and other expenses to survive.

Most who have had their "nest egg" robbed are forced to make tough financial decisions in their retirement years about how they are going to afford to simply live.

Too old or lacking the skills to return to today's workforce, simply getting another job is not an option.

What happened to the American Dream of working hard your entire life and being able to retire and enjoy your golden years of your life?

Communities are impacted dramatically by companies that decide to file bankruptcy.
Lost jobs, cut medical benefits and pensions robbed mean entire towns and communities lose financially.

Take the case of Smithers, WV (population 820) where during a community impact meeting Students testified that they would have to leave college or stop participating in school activities if the coal operators eliminated their health insurance. Retired miners detailed the life-and-death choices they make when coal companies and judges choose to rob them of health care and pension checks. Elected officials said that Smithers would collapse because the tax base would be wiped out by the judge’s corporate decision.

Even if you do not live in a small town or rural area, you can understand how dramatic such a loss could be upon the area in which you live.

Your corner market, doctor, city or county government school or anything funded by members of its community could be forced to leave or impacted greatly if forced to face such a financial blow thrown by a corporation filing bankruptcy

In the case of Horizon Natural Resources, the company sold its assets to other companies leaving thousands of workers throughout Kentucky, West Virginia, Illinois and Indiana wondering who would be their new bosses....but it didn't take too long for them to see that because their union contracts were dissolved, new ownership (Massey Coal Corp.) did not have to rehire any of them back, thus leaving those affected by the bankruptcy decision not only without medical benefits, slashed pensions, but also without jobs.

What future do we have as a nation if Corporate America is allowed to mismanage their finances and then get a free pass by filing bankruptcy?

The answer is simple: no pensions, no health care coverage, the elderly and widows left to make life and death decisions on whether to buy medicine or to eat, families displaced, communities thrown in to economic peril....the list goes on and on.

We can stop this injustice and we need everyone to take a stand to help to hold corporations accountable for what happens when the file bankruptcy.