FoolishCop
Unlike any of you commenting here, I was actually one of the police officers from outside NYC helping in the immediate aftermath of the towers falling (until our department forbade us from going in again), and I'm conflicted about this.
There is something to be said for wanting to care for the emergency workers who've been sickened because they went to help out, but then again, as many of them have said, they responded not for money but to help. It was because our country was under attack that we came and because people were in need. It was done without the expectation of pay or anything else.

But that doesn't automatically mean there is now an obligation to force money to pay for benefits for those who did respond and were sickened. And I think the bill's precedence of taxing foreign corporations is a bad one. So whenever we have to raise money for something that might not be politically popular, we tax those who can't vote or will be put in a bad light for complaining?

For one, do you even know what the bill would provide? While it's being touted as health benefits for the 9/11 workers, it's not like they are going to be getting money to pay for their care. Just because a bill is called something doesn't mean that's what it is. Politicians of all stripes cloak their taxing ways to hide hte true intent.

Rather than just pay for health benefits, it will lavish hundreds of millions of dollars on “health centers” to provide free care. While there are 10,000 names of people in the settlement group, it is open ended because it could provide care to many times that number for people who “may have” breathed in the toxic dust. It becomes a giveaway to people completely unaffected by actually having been there at Ground Zero.

The bill also provides for “education and outreach programs,” conduct “research on physical and mental health conditions” that may be related to the terrorist attacks, and reopens the 9-11 Victims Compensation Fund and extends its life for 21 years (!).

The original VCF paid out $7 billion in claims (about $6 billion for death claims), but the bill would pay out another $4.2 billion in addition claims, more than 4 times the amount paid out to those who were originally (and probably truly) hurt by the attacks. People can pile into this fund even if they already received a settlement previously. And of course, trial lawyers will receive taxpayer funded compensation for work done beyond the scope of the VCF, and like those individuals who already received a settlement, the lawyers who were already previously paid will be allowed to double dip.

In reality, this bill is nothing more than a big giveaway. I feel for my brethren who have been sickened by this episode, but this bill has very little to do with them. While it's called the James Zadroga bill, It really is about transferring wealth.

I bet that if what it did was really just pay for health benefits for emergency workers it would have no problem passing. But a huge infrastructure is going to be put in place and trial lawyers will be able to suckle off the teat of the taxpayer to such a large extent, that there will probably be very little money that actually helps anyone truly sickened and injured by their work at Ground Zero.

What's that saying, patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels? Usually it's the Republicans wrapping themselves in the flag and claiming anyone opposed is unpatriotic. Now we see the Democrats doing the same thing. This is not a patriotic bill. It is simply another entitlement program being set up that will achieve very little of what it claims it wants to do.

I'm surprised to see the Republicans having the backbone to fight it this far. I can see they will soon be bending to support it very soon though. The emergency service workers who responded and stayed did a yeoman's job, but this bill is a poor way of showing the respect that should be accorded them for what they did.

Rich