The Freedom Tower

Confusion reigns among agencies who oversee whether or not 9/11 workers living outside of New York City receive medical care.
A decision by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to halt a plan to create a national Sept. 11 health program could cripple the effort to help sick workers living outside of New York, state officials said yesterday.

Newsday, the Long Island newspaper says legislators are alarmed over the situation, “This is no time to say ‘no’ to first responders who have now retired and moved to warmer climates for their health,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) said at a midday news conference outside the PATH station at the World Trade Center site. “This was an unfair, misguided decision.”
Citing confusion among potential bidders and expected cost overruns, CDC officials were quoted as saying. CDC officials said Thursday the agency was halting the process of gathering proposals to create a World Trade Center Business Process Center.

“The federally funded center would reimburse doctors treating people who traveled to assist in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks on the trade center, as well as first responders who then lived in the New York metropolitan area and later moved away. The program also would gather data about 9/11-related illnesses.

Maloney and other members of New York state’s congressional delegation said the CDC showed bad faith in its handling of the program when it pulled the plug before the proposal process was complete.”