In the hours, days, and weeks following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the memberships of dozens of union organizations in New York State and around the nation came forward to provide whatever assistance they could, including a lot of the clean-up efforts at Ground Zero.
As the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks dawns, Congress is working to ensure that there is adequate funding to keep the World Trade Center Health Program running in the face of a substantial funding gap. A newly proposed bill, however, would pump an additional $7.3 billion into the fund to keep the program operational for another 10 years, with an additional 5 percent annual increase after that.
Recently, it was announced that four lawmakers had introduced an act intended to address the funding shortfalls currently being experienced by the WTC Health Program. The 9/11 Responder and Survivor Health Funding Correction Act was introduced to the House by Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney, Jerrold Nadler, and Andrew Garbarino, as well as to the Senate by Senator Kristin Gillibrand.
New Jersey Representative Mike Sherrill recently led a group of bipartisan congress members to draft a letter that was sent to the program administrator for the World Trade Center Health Program, urging him to hurry up and decide whether uterine cancer will be included in the list of covered conditions for the program. The letter followed the release of new scientific evidence that the chemicals present in the World Trade Center dust plume are commonly linked to the disease.
Twenty years have passed since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and once again, as the anniversary approaches, America remembers.
Are you a 9/11 first responder, clean-up worker, or downtown resident, worker or student who is now suffering from illnesses related to toxic exposure at the attack site? Did you lose a loved one to a 9/11-related illness before they had a chance to obtain compensation and medical benefits for their illness?
Sadly, many 9/11-health conditions cause the deaths of the individuals who suffer from them. The 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund permits a “personal representative” of a victim who has died to apply for VCF benefits to be paid to the victim’s estate and distributed according to the victim’s will or under applicable intestacy laws if the victim died without a will. This is known as a deceased claim.
On September 11, 2001, and in the months that followed, 500,000 people endured exposure to disaster in Lower Manhattan alone. This exposure included seeing the horrific loss of life, the collapse of one or both of the Towers, and seeing people running away from the dust plume in terror. The dust cloud enveloped more than half.
Awards from the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) are often substantial, with many people’s expenses, wage loss, and pain and suffering damages ranging well over a million dollars.
As of August 2021, the best estimate of time it takes for a new amended Victim Compensation Fund award decision is generally 12 -18 months. However, it can be shorter or longer depending on individual case circumstances. When your doctor or the WTC Health Program discovers a new 9/11-related medical condition, you must first get the new condition “certified” by the World Trade Center Health Program. That can take between one to two months at a minimum. Then Hansen & Rosasco can help move the process along to obtain additional compensation from the VCF. This starts the 12-18 month clock.
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