WASHINGTON — Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell on Tuesday introduced legislation to maintain health benefits for retired union coal miners whose companies have declared bankruptcy in recent years.

McConnell was among those who successfully worked last year to provide a four-month extension of health benefits that protected 16,000 miners whose benefits would otherwise have been cut off Jan. 1. Democrats made a major push as well, as the government neared a shutdown last December.

President-elect Donald Trump supports the effort to permanently address the issue, according to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who discussed the issue with him last week. The problem dates to a government promise made in 1946 for lifetime health care and pension benefits for unionized miners and their families.

Later Tuesday, a bipartisan group of senators, led by Manchin and his home-state Republican colleague, Shelley Moore Capito, reintroduced a broader measure that would not only address the health care shortfall but also the more expensive pension issue.