9/11 First Responders Protest Bush Health Care Funding Cuts

by Mike Hall, Feb 26, 2008

Today, three weeks after President Bush cut health care funding by 77 percent for Sept. 11 first responders, many of whom are developing serious and deadly illnesses because of their work at Ground Zero, some 200 9/11 workers rallied on Capitol Hill this morning, calling on Congress to restore the health care money.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health estimates the cost of treating Ground Zero workers is about $218 million year and is expected to grow as the workers’ illnesses worsen and as more firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians and rescue and recovery workers develop Ground Zero-related diseases.

Last year, Congress appropriated $108 million toward health care for 9/11 workers, but in his fiscal 2009 budget, Bush cut that by 77 percent—to $25 million. Also last year, as part of an emergency spending bill, Congress approved an additional $50 million for first responder health care.

Shortly before Bush’s cuts were announced, a White House spokesman told reporters the president’s budget would “reflect his continued commitment to World Trade Center workers.” Interpret that as you wish.

Charles Giles, a former emergency medical technician who spent five month working at Ground Zero, has been hospitalized 13 times since 2002 with Sept. 11-related health problems and was forced to sell his house to help cover the medical bills. On the bus ride from New York, he told the New York Daily News:

I feel like a charity case. Sept. 11 destroyed us. We gave our hearts and souls on 9/11. What this government is doing to us now is a shame.

Says Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.):

The administration has failed in every single one of its budget proposals to deliver adequate help to the heroes of 9/11. Sadly, it looks like this is yet another problem the president will be leaving to his successor.

Along with slashing health care funding, in December, the Bush administration canceled a health monitoring and treatment program for Ground Zero workers.

At a New York City Council meeting earlier this month, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said the federal government bears “considerable responsibility” for thousands of people becoming sick and disabled from Sept. 11 due to its “own negligence” in the days and weeks following the attacks on the World Trade Center.

The federal government, by declaring that the “air was safe to breathe,” and by failing to enforce stringent workplace safety laws…is clearly culpable for recklessly allowing tens of thousands of people to be unnecessarily exposed to dangerous environmental toxins in the immediate wake of 9/11, and it continues to recklessly endanger lives by its failure, to this day, to clean indoor spaces downtown. As such, it has an absolute duty and moral obligation to pay its debt to the living victims of 9/11 by providing health care and compensation for those affected.

Along with protesting the budget cuts and the cancellation of the health care monitoring program, first responders met with many members of Congress to boost support for H.R. 3543, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, introduced by Maloney, Nadler and Rep. Vito Fossella (R-N.Y).

The bill would create a permanent World Trade Center Health Program to provide monitoring, treatment and research to address the health effects of the Sept. 11 attacks. It is named after a New York police detective who died from the after-effects of responding to the disaster.

Today’s event was organized the FealGood Foundation, a New York based organization dedicated to assisting sick 9/11 responders.

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