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Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City. From WNYC, I'm Janae Pierre. Former New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, has been spending the last four years defending his response to the COVID pandemic. Now he's under oath in Washington.

Andrew Cuomo: These are old diversions to blame New York and other states for the culpability of the federal response, which was malpractice.

Janae Pierre: Cuomo testified this week in front of a Republican-led subcommittee examining COVID in New York nursing homes. Republican Representative, Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, chairs the panel. He says Cuomo deserves blame for a 2020 order requiring New York nursing homes to accept COVID-19-positive residents.

Brad Wenstrup: Governor, you own this. It's your name on the letterhead. This is your directive, whether you knew about it or not.

Janae Pierre: Cuomo has long maintained the order was based on federal guidance, which the panel says is not true. The World Trade Center Health Program has helped tens of thousands of first responders and survivors of 911, but the program will be forced to cut services in a few years if Congress doesn't take action. More on that after the break. On September 11th, 2001, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center killed nearly 3,000 people. Since then, more first responders have died from 911-related illnesses than were killed on that day itself. In 2010, Congress passed legislation creating the World Trade Center Health Program to provide medical treatment to 911 first responders and survivors.

In 2015, the program was reauthorized until 2090, but medical costs have gone up due to inflation, and if Congress doesn't take action, the World Trade Center Health Program could begin cutting access to care by 2028. For more, I'm joined by Benjamin Chevat, executive director of the group, Citizens for the Extension of the James Zadroga Act. First off, who was James Zadroga, and why was this legislation named in his honor?

Benjamin Chevat: James Zadroga was a 911 responder, NYPD. He responded to the attack and was part of the rescue and recovery effort. He then became quite ill, had many issues, and subsequently died from his conditions. Why he is important is that he passed away in New Jersey, and the New Jersey coroner made a determination that he had died from his exposure to the toxins at ground zero. Just to put in perspective why that was important, there were concerns growing in the aftermaths about the impact of the toxins that were released at ground zero and in the Lower Manhattan community.

For many years, the government did not accept that there had been potential harm, so it was big news when there was evidence when Detective Zadroga passed away. This autopsy report was a critical moment in trying to force the Bush administration to have some sort of federal response to provide both compensation for those that were injured, but equally important, a medical response, medical monitoring, and treatment for the respiratory conditions, the other conditions, that 911 responders and the community were facing.

Janae Pierre: Ben, I'm thinking of the timeline here because it would be nearly a decade after 911 before this bill was passed in 2010. Why did it take Congress so long to take action on this?

Benjamin Chevat: I think what happened is that the powers that be did not want to admit that they had made this mistake and that people should not have been brought back into Lower Manhattan. The school kids should not have been brought back to Stuyvesant High School and to the other schools in the community. When you ask, "Why did it take so long?", you'd have to ask Congress, but I know that there were efforts, and it was really, it was bipartisan, but, to be honest, it was the Bush administration's absolute opposition to repeatedly choose spending the money for-- or even asking the questions.

Janae Pierre: Let's talk about the World Trade Center Health Program here. Since its inception, it has helped over 132,000 people who have either survived the attacks on 911 or acted as first responders. In what ways does this program help these people who are living with illness or injury?

Benjamin Chevat: You know, and the response element is complicated. There are two components of that. As you said, there are the responders, and that's not just police and fire, but that was the construction, military, volunteers. You had people, both who were in New York and then you had FEMA teams that responded, like the FEMA team from California, from Oakland, that was on the ground 14 hours later. They all came, they served, and they went back home. Then you have what we called in the bill, "survivors," which are the residents, area workers, people who worked in Lower Manhattan, and people who were, at the time, kids and now middle-aged, who went to schools in the affected areas.

The World Trade Center Health Program is not health insurance. It is a limited government program that provides medical monitoring and treatment for a specific list of 911 conditions. That list is on the program's website. If you're a responder, you can enroll in the program. If you meet the criteria, you were there a certain number of hours and location, and you did tasks that were defined as being a responder, you can be enrolled. Whether you have symptoms of any of these conditions or not, you get medical monitoring going forward, every year.

If you're a survivor, the survivor area is different. It goes from up to Houston Street and takes in parts of the extreme Western Brooklyn. If you're a survivor, in order to be enrolled in the program, you have to have one of the covered conditions or believe that you have one of the covered conditions. That is that you enroll in the program, you're accepted, you're examined, and if you do, in fact, have one of the conditions, you're accepted to the program.

Janae Pierre: Ben, I'm wondering, how is this program funded and what happens if Congress doesn't take action?

Benjamin Chevat: When the bill was passed, there were certain things we wanted to make sure were in the bill. One of the most important things in the bill is we didn't want to go through the appropriations process. We didn't want to fight every year for funds. The federal government funds programs via different ways. There's the appropriations process, and then there are things that are given funding for the life of their program. That's basically how we fought to make sure that we were not in the appropriations process. In 2010, what was in that bill was a funding formula for the next five years, a set amount, actually, for the five years, but, obviously, people are going to be sick longer than five years.

We started to lobby in 2015, we managed to get Congress to agree to extend the World Trade Center Health Program till 2090. The problem is that while we managed to get that victory of getting the program and getting it funded through 2090, the funding formula that was agreed to at the time has proven to be not sufficient to handle both the inflation but, really, the growth of costs of the program, the growth of the number of people in the program, the types of conditions, the cost of treating those conditions. The issue that we're facing today is that we know that projections are that in the fiscal year of 2028, that there will be a short flow starting that year.

I want to make it very clear, there's no issue right now. What we are trying to do is not have a crisis, not have to drag people down as people remember the firefighters coming down to Washington and walking the hall wells. Pressure them to do the right thing.

Janae Pierre: Yes, and as I said, you guys have helped over 132,000 people. Ben, what does a crisis look like if the program goes away?

Benjamin Chevat: What the program has told us, that if their projections are correct and they don't have enough funding starting in fiscal year 2028, is that, first off, that what they'll have to do is stop enrolling new members. While this is a clearly defined cohort, in terms of it has to be people who were there and were exposed, we are getting 400, 500, 600 people a month coming into the program, either the responders or their survivors who have one of the covered conditions. The first thing that would happen is we assume that even in 2028, that will continue to grow as people regrettably get cancer diagnosis, predominantly, is the issue.

Then in the subsequent year, there would have to be cutbacks in the services in the years after that. The first thing that would happen is that new people coming forward who realize that they may have the condition would not even be able to be enrolled. That's why this is so important. That's why the effort being led today, by Senator Gillibrand, Senator Schumer, Congressman Garbarino, every member of both parties working together, to try to resolve this thing before it becomes a crisis.

Janae Pierre: Benjamin Chevat is the executive director of the group, Citizens for the Extension of the James Zadroga Act.

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Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Janae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.

 

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