The Trump administration apologized Friday for stripping millions of dollars from an FDNY fund that foots health care bills for 9/11 survivors and promised to put an end to the heartless practice.
The administration’s mea culpa came after the Daily News reported Thursday that the Treasury Department has over the past four years siphoned nearly $4 million from the FDNY World Trade Center Health Program, which helps cover medical services for firefighters, EMTs and paramedics still suffering from 9/11-related illnesses.
Treasury Department spokeswoman Rebecca Miller said the administration took the FDNY cash to cover some of the city’s unrelated Medicare debt, which has piled up over the years.
However, Miller claimed her department didn’t necessarily know the funds were being redirected from the FDNY program and blamed the city’s “complicated” collection system.
According to Miller, the City Department of Finance participates in a collection database that allows the federal government to offset one local agency’s federal debt by dipping into another one’s coffers.
She said the Treasury Department is bound by law to collect if there are sufficient funds to cover a debt, but stressed that she considers it “unacceptable” to take cash from sick first responders to cover unrelated Medicare debt.
However, Dr. David Prezant, the FDNY’s chief medical officer who oversees the 9/11 program, told The News this week that he’s been asking the Treasury Department and the city for years about the quiet rerouting of cash and that no one has ever given him an explanation.
Miller struggled to explain why no one got back to Prezant.
The City Department of Finance did not immediately return a request for comment.
Miller said her department is working with the city and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to resolve the debt some other way and return the cash to the FDNY 9/11 fund.
Of the city’s responsibility, King said: “They should have fought back … I mean de Blasio can find the time to paint Black Lives Matter signs in front of Trump Tower, you’d think you could have found the time to speak out on this.”❏
