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524US2

Unit: $U94

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 498 (1998)

561

Breyer, J., dissenting

“[retiree] medical beneﬁts.” Ante, at 535. The relevant
history, outlined below, shows that industry action (including
action by Eastern), combined with Federal Government
action and the miners’ own forbearance, produced circum-
stances that made it natural for the miners to believe that
either industry or Government (or both) would make every
effort to see that they received health beneﬁts after they
retired—regardless of what terms were explicitly included
in previously signed bargaining agreements.

(1) Before the 1940’s, health care for miners, insofar as it
existed, was provided by “company doctors” in company
towns. See, e. g., U. S. Dept. of Interior, Report of the Coal
Mines Administration, A Medical Survey of the Bituminous-
Coal Industry 121, 144 (1947) (hereinafter Boone Report);
id., at 131, 191, 193 (describing care as substandard and criti-
cizing the “noticeable deﬁciency” in the number of doctors);
Secretary of Labor’s Advisory Commission on United Mine
Workers of America Retiree Health Beneﬁts, Coal Commis-
sion Report 19 (1990) (hereinafter Coal Comm’n Report),
App. in No. 96–1947 (CA1), p. 1350 (hereinafter App. (CA1)).
By the late 1940’s, health care and pension rights had be-
come the issue for miners, a central demand in collective bar-
gaining, and a rallying cry for those who urged a nationwide
coal strike. M. Fox, United We Stand 404, 416 (1990);
I. Krajcinovic, From Company Doctors to Managed Care 17,
43 (1997) (hereinafter Krajcinovic); C. Seltzer, Fire in the
Hole 57 (1985); R. Zieger, John L. Lewis: Labor Leader 151
(1988); see also ante, at 504–505.
John L. Lewis, head of
the United Mine Workers of America (hereinafter UMWA or
Union), urged the mine owners to “ ‘remove that fear’ ” of
sudden death from “ ‘their minds so that they will know if
that occurs . . . their families will be provided with proper
insurance.’ ” Zieger, supra, at 153.
In 1946, the workers
struck. The Government seized the mines. And the Gov-
ernment, together with the Union, effectively imposed a
managed health care agreement on the coal operators. Selt-
zer, supra, at 58.