Mayor wants nationwide health care for those with Sept. 11-related illnesses

Newsday

WASHINGTON — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is asking U.S. lawmakers to pass a bill that would “at long last” provide nationwide health care for sufferers of Sept. 11-related illnesses.

“People from all 50 states took part in the subsequent relief and recovery efforts,” Bloomberg told a congressional subcommittee Thursday. “And that makes addressing the resulting and ongoing health affects of 9/11 a national duty.”

Bloomberg testified before the Health Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The measure lawmakers are considering would create federal programs for medical treatment and compensation for first responders and residents sickened by toxic dust that swirled from Ground Zero. It’s a modified version of a bill first introduced a year ago that now reduces the area of exposure to toxic dust and sets a higher standard for determining Sept. 11-related illnesses.

While most subcommittee members said they supported the measure, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, called it too broad.

“This bill is well-intended but it appears on the surface ... to be more comprehensive and beneficial than it needs to be to solve the immediate problem,” said Barton, the committee’s former chairman.

But Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat whose district contains Ground Zero, said the bill would help only those with Sept. 11-related sicknesses.

“This is not just a bill introduced a week ago,” he said. “This is a seven-year work in progress.”

Officials said 16,000 first responders and at least 3,000 residents became sick after the attacks.

The revised bill, sponsored by Nadler and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., was introduced July 23 in the House. It’s named for New York police officer James Zadroga, who died of lung and brain disease after working hundreds of hours at the former World Trade Center site.

Waiting for the hearing to begin, Jim Riches, 58, of Brooklyn, said he lost his son, Jim, 29, a New York City firefighter, when the north tower fell. Riches, a former deputy chief of the city’s fire department, said respiratory problems he suffered after work at Ground Zero forced him into early retirement December 2007.