Labor union groups have called the funding for a national trust fund that is supposed to pay the claims of people made ill by exposure to asbestos inadequate. Insurers and asbestos manufacturers have agreed to contribute as much as $115 billion to the trust over 20-plus years to pay medical costs and other damages of asbestos sufferers. Defendant companies and their insurers as well as existing trusts set up in the bankruptcies of earlier asbestos companies would also pay into the trust.
See "Accord Reached On Asbestos Fund", Albert B. Crenshaw, The Washington Post, October 15, 2003