Inconvenient Facts About H.R. 847--James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010

This article has two sources--an article posted on Friday at the Weekly Standard and an article posted Thursday at GOP.gov.

The Weekly Standard article, by John McCormack, reminds us why the Democrats in the House of Representatives were unable to pass the bill:

"...the bill failed because Democrats suspended the rules, which denied the Republicans the chance to offer any amendments and required a 2/3 majority to pass. According to Hill sources, Democrats suspended the rules because they were afraid that Republicans would offer a motion to recommit--the one amendment allotted to the minority party by the rules--to pay for the bill using money from Obamacare or the stimulus or an amendment to deny funds to illegal immigrants."

The Weekly Standard article also points out:

"Three government programs already exist to provide care for 9/11 responders, but this bill would have expanded the number of people who could get care."

The article at GOP.gov explains one of the the Republican objections to the bill:

"The funding would be a new entitlement over the next 10 years for 90 percent of the costs of operating the new program. The remaining 10 percent of the costs of the program would be the responsibility of New York City for fiscal years 2011 to 2018. Then for fiscal years 2019 and 2020, New York City is responsible for only 1/9^th of the cost. The federal government's contribution would be capped at the lower of 90 percent of the costs or a specified amount each fiscal year beginning in FY2011 and ending in FY2020. Over this 10-year period, federal spending could not exceed $3.35 billion. No federal funds would be available for the program after FY2020."

There are a number of other objections to the bill explained at GOP.gov. Some of them are:

Limited oversight fails to ensure taxpayer funds are spent properly and effectively. Government health care programs, such as Medicare, have a significant amount of fraud.
H.R. 847 includes protections for trial lawyers, including the ability to receive taxpayer-funded compensation for work not directly related to recovery from the VCF. In addition, attorneys who have been compensation under another settlement will have access to settlement funds under the reopened VCF.
H.R. 847 increases hospital reimbursement rates to 140 percent of Medicare reimbursement rates on average for New York City hospitals while ObamaCare cuts $150 billion in payments to hospitals around the country.

Please take a look at the article at GOP.gov to see the other objections. As written, this was a bad bill that needed to be amended in order to pass. Had the Democrats allowed amendments, the improved bill could have passed with a simple majority.

Inconvenient Facts About H.R. 847--James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010

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