SEARCH
7 Years Later, Bush Still Blocks Health Care Funding for 9/11 Rescue Workers |
|
 |
|
Today marks the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 that killed nearly 3,000 people, including some 600 union members.
At the World Trade Center, 343 of the dead were New York City firefighters. Says Fire Fighters (IAFF) President Harold Schaitberger:
No matter how many years pass, we must always remember the ultimate sacrifice made by our 343 fallen FDNY brothers after terrorists launched their cowardly attacks on the World Trade Centers.
We must always remember the thousands of IAFF members in Washington, D.C., and Virginia who risked their lives to pull hundreds of victims from the Pentagon.
This Day of Remembrance will live forever, in honor of the price these brave fire fighters made in the line of duty….We owe it to them to continue the fight make the lives of our members and the public safer.
In late August, New York firefighters delivered a large cross made out of steel from the World Trade Center North Tower to Shanksville, Pa., where United Flight 93 crashed. The cross is now part of a memorial site there.
Today, at St. Peter’s Church, near Ground Zero, the Rev. Brian Jordan, who works closely with New York City unions, is conducting a special 9/11 mass. St. Peter’s became known, in the days after the attacks, as the place where first responders and rescue and recovery workers gathered to rest, exhausted, sleeping on the pews and the floor.
Also, several city unions are holding memorial services and the New York State Building and Construction Trades Council unions building the new Yankee Stadium will pause to remember the 61 construction trades workers killed on Sept. 11.
While solemn remembrances are being held in New York, at the Pentagon and throughout the nation, there still is no permanent medical monitoring and treatment program for as many as 100,000 responders—firefighters, paramedics, rescue and recovery workers—who were exposed to the stew of chemicals and other toxic substances in the rubble of the World Trade Center. Seven years later they are a still suffering from illnesses directly related to the attacks.
In the years since the attacks, the Bush administration consistently has delayed and blocked efforts and cut funding for Sept. 11-related health care. Last year, Congress appropriated $108 million toward health care for Sept. 11 workers, but in his fiscal 2009 budget, Bush cut that by 77 percent—to $25 million.
A study by doctors at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City in 2006 found nearly 70 percent of firefighters, police officers, emergency medical crews, construction workers, utility workers and volunteers suffered lung and other serious health problems.
The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act (H.R. 6594) would establish a monitoring and treatment program for responders and people who lived near Ground Zero. It is named after a New York police detective who died from the aftereffects of responding to the disaster. But it is unclear when the bill will come up for a vote.
5 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
“7 Years Later, Bush Still Blocks Health Care Funding for 9/11 Rescue Workers”
Not only that but for veterans also.
He has great Health Care for himself and his family as well as illegal aliens in and near the USA so that seems to be as far as his interest is concerned.
Union Brothers and Sisters, Members of the House of Labor, Friends of All Working Families,
Where is the voice of Reason and Stewardship on this entire issue of Health Care Delivery in the Workplace? Why do I find that my voice is like the lone voice in the wilderness within the public arena on this important issue of Workmen’s Compensation, a Health Care Crisis which affects every working Man and Woman throughout this country? Has this basic obligation to the idea of Health and Safety been Abandoned by the ones we go to serve?
It’s time that Injured Workers in America STEP UP, FIGHT and DEMAND their Timely Access to Treatment, Compensation and Benefits, and High Time that Organizations that say they Represent Working Men and Women, Represent Working Families, or the voice of Candidates for Public Office that say they support Working Families, start to make it very clear in every speech and every campaign communication that they make an Immediate Commitment to solving and addressing this Crime against America’s Injured Workers.
Over the last 10 years I have watched, as I too have needed help within this complex area of Treatment and Compensation, and found nearly every door closed and every request for assistance resulting in only more frustration, more litigation, denial, delay and complexity. ( Hell has never been so clearly or well defined! )
There has never been a greater “Class War” outlined in these modern days of the 21st Century than this one here, which places our injured workers in a position of being held hostage from receiving timely treatment, compensation and benefits after a workplace injury. Yet there is absolutely NO Demand for CHANGE!! NOT ONE who will be the VOICE of Reason and Demand that this very well known BROKEN System becomes the focus of Immediate Treatment and Substantive Reform, a Central Theme in the HUGE Demand for Health Care Reform. Where is the Leadership? Where is the Stewardship of Protection for the Injured Worker??
Injuries “During and in the Course of Employment” have become a number one “Cost Containment ” tool of Employers, Insurers and TPA’s. The Injured Worker has become a disposable element of the Profit Scheme within the American workplace, and there is NO VOICE to Stop the Crime and Protect our Working Families facing this Abuse! In the absence of this needed VOICE, who really deserves your confidence and support??
You Want CHANGE? You Looking for CHANGE? Real CHANGE will Begin when REAL ISSUES are being addressed within the Public Forum. CHANGE will begin when OUR Candidates BEGIN to actively take on this issue, understand and speak about the abuse and need for CHANGE, and then carry this issue forward in the form of a COMMITMENT to Working Families for Real, Life Sustaining and Life Saving Reform.
Their voices are Silent!! SILENT, I tell you, and their silence is a signal that they JUST DON’T GET IT!!
I got it!! I know it, and there is not a day that goes by that I don’t take this topic forward and work for a ounce of progress, or an inch of movement forward to bring Real Change to the Injured! But I need your VOICE Too!
If you are one affected by this crime of indifference, or if you are one that is being held hostage by this “Cost Containment” Tactic of Torture and Abuse, you are not alone. But only through our collective action, only through our collective Voice and Power will this Crime against the Working Family see the Light of Reform.
Please feel free to contact me about your thoughts and concerns, even if you are just one that needs help, as you are not alone in that fight, but together our collective voices can help and will bring CHANGE for ALL!!
Thank you in advance for your comments and thoughts. Today I offer to you my vision of HOPE!!
Craig Michie
Injured Worker - 10/29/99
NvVIAW@aol.com - Nevada Voters Injured at Work
YES! - excellent post. I agree with you, 100%. I am there, collecting Social Security disability, and my spouse is there collecting unemployment compensation, both of which do not even begin to put a dent into our expenses, because Unemployment Compensation and Social Security have not kept up with the cost of living in this country; they do not even come close. As a result, we are living with our son in a very small house until, hopefully, my spouse can get a job, as I will never be able to work again, which is very hard.
I really wish every single American out there will realize how important it is to be informed and understand just what is happening in this country, because all our lives are at stake here.
ok, I have been critical of some opinions on this site, but if this article is accurate, I am outraged. I would like to see what else was attached to the bill (you know how politicians play games, attach crazy things to a bill so it wont get passed). But how would this be different than anyone else hired as a rescue worker and injured? Theres something complicated and wrong here. We spent so much money and had countless charities for the victims families…why was there nothing that I know of for the injured helpers, from the government or private donations and business donations? (There might be one, I just dont know about it)
On September 11th 2001 Rescuers from the Police, Fire, EMS,
Construction, the trades and everyday citizens responded to the call of the attack on our country. With out hesitation or question the Rescuers stepped into harms way putting their health and very lives on the line to do their duty. The Rescuers trusted that the health and safety organizations that were present would not endanger their health and lives. Today we know they were not forthcoming with truthful information, Today the Rescuers are paying the price for that deception, some with their very lives.
Our founding fathers created this nation on the beliefs of freedom
liberty and truth. They believed that our nation is a nation of laws
and risked everything to achieve those truths; that would become the United States of America.
Rescuers from NYC and all 50 states and even overseas responded to the World Trade Center to help bring the lost home. This national crisis showed what is best in America. In the Rescuers community we stand together as family, when we say we have your back; we mean it.
Now there are Rescuers from all over the nation; who are being
affected by their toxic exposure at the World Trade Center disaster. We need help. We need a federal health care program that will ensure medical care that is complete and uncontested. We need medical monitoring and care for the rest of our lives.
We as a people and a nation must ensure that our Rescuers who stand in Harms way in future national disaster or crisis have their health and financial futures undeniably and irrevocably protected. Rescuers need assurances that in the future the truth and the law will prevail. For future Rescuers; who we as a nation will need to save us in a crisis, this is the least we can do for them.
We were called heroes, but we felt we were just doing our duty. Now we need someone to be our heroes.
I was there, I have lung disease from my Toxic Exposure at Ground Zero. There are tens of thousands of Rescuers who are sick from doing their duty at Ground Zero. We need to stand together or we will die alone.
May all who were lost that day, and those who have died since because of the World Trade Center rest in peace.