WTC Health Program faces shortfall

With the World Trade Center Health Program once again facing a funding shortfall that could oblige it to turn away would-be enrollees within a few years, a bipartisan group of Congress members are backing legislation that would provide mandatory, permanent funding for the program.

Established by the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act passed by Congress in late 2010, the program provides medical monitoring and treatment of WTC-related health conditions for 9/11 responders and survivors.

Although it was reauthorized in 2015, with a sunset date of 2090, program costs have increased more than was anticipated, in part because more sick and injured 9/11 responders and survivors have since enrolled. 

“Without this fix,” the program “will have to start making cuts to services and turn away new responders and survivors by 2028,” Democrat New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the legislation’s primary Senate sponsor, said Thursday during a Capitol Hill press event introducing the bill. 

Gillibrand and others at the  event said it was critical for Congress to pass the legislation given the latency period of illnesses, mostly cancers, caused by the dust and debris that lingered at the World Trade Center site in the days, weeks and months following the attacks. 

Congress authorized funding to keep the program going in prior years, including $700 million last year and $1 billion in 2022. The current bill would inject nearly $3 billion into the program’s fund and ensure that amount for each fiscal year through 2033. It would also tweak the funding formula to ensure the program remains solvent through 2090.

“We’re solving this problem, once and for all, permanently,” Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said at the event. 

“The people who got sick later deserve the treatment and health care that the people who got sick earlier got,” he added. “We’re not going to leave you high and dry.”

The bill also increases funding for research and data collection on 9/11 conditions.

John Feal, a staunch advocate for WTC responders, noted that the program had nearly twice as many enrollees — 132,000 as of March — than it did nine years ago. “Everybody’s latency period is different,” he said. “More and more people are going to get sick. While we’re a finite number, we’re getting smaller because we’re dying.” 

But Feal, a demolition supervisor at ground zero who was badly injured when a steel beam slammed down on his foot and who later founded the FealGood Foundation, remarked that the program’s singular focus on 9/11 illnesses, coupled to early screening protocols, means that WTC responders have a higher survival rate compared with the general population. 

The program’s wholesale continuity is imperative, he said. “This is a commitment and commitment that should be serious, and if we don’t take this seriously, people will suffer,” Feal said. 

Recipients in all 50 states

The president of the New York City Sergeants Benevolent Association, Vincent Vallelong, recalled two former partners who fell ill with similar cancers as a result of their work at ground zero. One of them, retired Sergeant Leonard Davis, died last year at 54. 

“We shouldn’t be coming down with these illnesses at this time of our lives,” Vallelong said. “This is about doing the right thing,” he said of the funding effort.

About 35,000 of the nearly 89,000 responders now in the program were between 55 and 64 as of March. Just over 22,000 of them have 9/11 certified health conditions.

Andrew Ansbro, the president of the United Firefighters Association, Local 94, recalled that 343 members of the FDNY died on the day of the attacks, but that another 362 had since died because of their work during the rescue and recovery phases at the site. “And we’re continuing to lose members, two or three a month, nonstop,” he said.

He called it “unacceptable” that the program could have to begin turning away recipients. “It’s easy to say ‘never forget,’ but backing it up with action is what ‘never forget’ means,” Ansbro said. 

Nearly 3,000 were killed at the World Trade Center the day of the attacks. Since then, nearly 7,000 people who contracted respiratory illnesses, cancers and other ailments and enrolled in the WTC Health Program have died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Just over 5,000 of them were responders from the FDNY, NYPD, DSNY and other city agencies and departments, and volunteers.

Those enrolled in the program live in all 50 states and in 434 out of 435 Congressional districts. More than 83,000 of them have at least one certified 9/11 condition attributable to toxins at ground zero, the Pentagon and the Shanksville crash site, while a large percentage have multiple conditions caused by the dust and debris, according to Citizens for the Extension of the James Zadroga Act, a coalition of unions and 9/11 advocate groups pushing for the permanent funding bill.

Gillibrand said she was confident the legislation would get enough support, but wants to see the bill passed soon. She said its sponsors would look to attach it to any must-pass bill, such as the defense budget.

“I’m optimistic that we will get a vote that will be deeply bipartisan in the Senate,” she said. “I’d like to do it now. Time is always of the essence. You don’t know what the future holds. And we have the strong coalition now and we have passion behind this moment in time.”

richardk@thechiefleader.com

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