Eleventh-Hour Deal Scuttles Federal Funding for WTC Health Program
A last-minute change to the federal spending bill that kept the government from shutting down in late December dropped proposed funding for the World Trade Center Health Program (which serves people made sick by toxic debris from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001) that had previously been agreed upon by a bi-partisan coalition of legislators.
U.S. Congressman Dan Goldman (who represents Lower Manhattan) was one of the architects of the original compromise – the 9/11 Responder and Survivor Health Funding Correction Act of 2024 – which aimed to ensure that the WTC Health Program would have all the money necessary for the next ten years, after which its funding mechanism would have been revised to prevent future shortfalls through the planned sunset of benefits in 2090. In particular, the measure would have averted an impending budget shortfall in 2027. The bill also contained provisions to increase appropriations for research and data collection related to conditions associated with September 11, with a focus on mental health and dementia.
Mr. Goldman was furious when this plan was dropped just before the end of the year. “After weeks of negotiations resulted in a bipartisan budget bill that provided vital assistance to the 132,000 September 11 survivors and first responders who rely on the program for health care,” he said, “Donald Trump followed directions from the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, and ordered House Republicans to kill their own bill.”
This was a reference to the prominent role in this development played by Mr. Musk, who has been tapped by President-elect Trump to head up a new Department of Government Efficiency, with a mandate to target fraudulent and wasteful spending across federal agencies.
Mr. Goldman added, “no one elected Elon Musk, yet Republicans would rather represent his interests than represent the constituents who elected them. While Donald Trump hides in Mar-a-Lago, Elon Musk is calling the shots on funding the government and Republicans have chosen their billionaire supporters over working New Yorkers.”
The looming budget shortfall means that, if nothing changes, the program will have to begin reducing services and rationing care in approximately 24 months. When the program was launched in 2010, no policymaker could foresee the number of people who would eventually need its services. For this reason, its initial budget was drained in just a few years, and the bill required reauthorization in 2015. The additional funds allocated at that time were nearly depleted by 2023, which led Congress to provide a cash infusion of $676 million at the end of that year. This most recent funding boost appears likely to be sufficient through sometime in 2027. But absent further allocations, the program at that point will need to begin turning away new applicants and curtailing services.
The funding formulas contained in the statutes that created and renewed the WTC Health Program have failed to keep pace with the costs of providing the program’s services, in part, because of the evolving nature of the health problems it is being called upon to treat. As the Centers for Disease Control (which oversees the program) explained in a statement, “the program has seen an increase in the number of cancer cases. The complexity of treating cancer, especially with other co-morbidities, and an aging membership in general, has increased the program’s healthcare costs beyond what was previously estimated.”
Lower Manhattan resident Mariama James (left), who is a survivor of the September 11 attacks and has acquired a reputation as a zealous advocate for services to people affected by the disaster, said, “every year, the entire nation stops and reflects upon where we each were on September 11, 2001. We pray. We cry. We think about those we lost that day and in the aftermath, as well as those now suffering with illnesses due to exposure to toxic dust. We thank the first responders and the survivors, too, for rebuilding New York. But when presented with an opportunity to attempt to repay this debt by providing the much-needed and deserved healthcare and compensation that has been promised, we play politics.”
Ms. James, who also serves on the Survivor Steering Committee and the Scientific Technical Advisory Committee for the World Trade Center Health Program, continued, “this is a nonpartisan issue. It wasn’t just Democrats, Independents or Republicans who died that day or who are dying now. It was – and is – Americans. We need to stop the performative B.S. and fund the program.”