Tuesday, September 10, 2024
Year : 2, Issue: 36
Just days before the 23rd anniversary of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, firefighter union members and leadership said they’re still fighting for health care funding to treat members who were exposed to toxins at the World Trade Center site.
“Last year, my father passed away from 9/11-related cancer,” said FDNY Uniformed Firefighters Association President Andrew Ansbro. “He was a chief with the NYPD. Chief Michael Ansbro, chief of the Transit Division. He and I were both there for the collapses. We both survived.”
Ansbro believes his father was able to live longer with 9/11-related cancer because of the cancer treatment he received through the World Trade Center Health Program. More than 132,000 people are part of the program.
The 9/11 Responder and Survivor Health Funding Correction Act of 2024 would provide additional funding for the program through 2033 and create a new formula to determine funding amounts for the program from 2034 through 2090.
Congress has had to reauthorize or refund it several times since the program was created in 2010.
On the day of the attacks, 343 members of the FDNY died. Just days before the 23rd anniversary of 9/11, 370 firefighters who responded to the attacks on the World Trade Center have fallen ill and died, 28 of them in the last year.
The FDNY Uniformed Fire Officers Association said without the legislation, they’ll have to stop accepting members into the health program by 2028 and treatment may be cut for members struggling with 9/11-related illnesses, including cancer.
“The significant increase in costs for the 9/11 cancers that now exist in the 9/11 bill are crippling the system,” said Jim Brosi, the president of the Uniformed Firefighter Officers Association.
Congress created the fund in 2010 and reupped it five years later.
Source: Spectrum News NY1
