Posted on 06/13/2019 5:40:20 AM PDT by Kaslin
Jon Stewart is best known as a comedian and former host of "The Daily Show." Virtually all talk show hosts draw from the well of politics. But Stewart's tenure took that to a new level, and he made no bones about his distinctly progressive leanings.
Stewart is talented and intelligent, and his riffs on politics and political figures are funny (whether you share his political views or not). He is already a household name. But Stewart gave the monologue of his life yesterday in front of a congressional subcommittee charged with finding additional financial support for the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund. The VCF is running out of money, and Congress has not stepped up to provide further funding.
If Stewart had a prepared speech, it was not immediately apparent. Yet his remarks were delivered with the kind of clarity and brutal honesty that we are not accustomed to hearing addressed directly to members of Congress.
Stewart's first poignant objection was to the absence of so many Senate Judiciary Committee members at the hearing. "Sick and dying," Stewart said of the first responders present, "they brought themselves down here to speak. To no one. Shameful."
He's right.
Stewart also expressed his ire at the excuses made for delays and non-payment of first responders' claims: First the government claimed that the first responders weren't really sick. Then it claimed that their illnesses weren't caused by toxins in the burning rubble at Ground Zero. Then it was "We don't have the money." Stewart accused Congress of "callous indifference and rank hypocrisy."
He's right.
Stewart asked rhetorically why the process of obtaining needed compensation "is so damn hard and takes so damn long." He called for the bill to be a stand-alone piece of legislation and chided Congress for its exploitation of the process: This bill will "get stuck in some transportation bill or some appropriations bill and get sent over to the Senate, where a certain someone from the Senate will use it as a political football to get themselves maybe another new import tax on petroleum."
He's right.
And he drove home that the 9/11 first responders -- the FDNY, NYPD, Port Authority and EMS -- responded instantly to the terrorist attacks. "They responded in five seconds," Stewart said, pausing to compose himself. "They did their jobs. With courage, grace, tenacity ... humility. Eighteen years later, DO YOURS!"
Stewart's impassioned plea has already gone viral. No doubt additional pressure will be put on Congress. But what's the problem in the first place?
Rupa Bhattacharyya, the fund's special master, was quoted in Time magazine saying, "The plain fact is that we are expending the available funds more quickly than assumed, and there are many more claims than anticipated." Twenty thousand claims have already been processed, and 17,000 more are working their way through the system. But illness attributable to exposure to the toxins at Ground Zero will likely continue for years.
Tens of thousands of claims, and the government cannot fund them. No one should be surprised. The problems with the health care provided by Veterans Affairs to our 18.2 million veterans are notorious and legion. Indian Health Services, which serves only 2.2 million (of 5 million total) Native Americans, is even worse. (A recent Roll Call article described IHS’ “seemingly intractable problems: underfunding, quality deficiencies, a lack of agency leadership and inattention in Washington.” Sound familiar?)
Our larger social programs have even larger problems. There are 55 million people enrolled in Medicare. The program’s trustees warn that Medicare will be insolvent by 2026. And the Government Accountability Office reported in 2015 that $60 billion -- 10 percent of Medicare’s annual budget -- was lost to waste, abuse, fraud and improper payments that year alone.
Medicaid has 72 million people enrolled and consumes 20% of states' annual budgets. Yet the government's approved payment amounts to providers are so ridiculously low that many patients on Medicaid cannot find doctors or hospitals that will take it.
As for Social Security, a report released in April states that its reserves are predicted to be depleted by 2035 unless taxes are raised or benefits are cut.
The fact is that our government has done a terrible job budgeting for the populations to whom it has already promised a safety net. There is every reason to believe that a program to pay for health care for 329 million people would be a failure of unprecedented proportions, with catastrophic results.
Stewart said, "9/11 first responders shouldn't to decide whether to live, or to have a place to live," and that frankly no American should "face financial ruin" because of medical expenses.
He's right there, too. But as his testimony showed with painful clarity yesterday, the federal government has neither the ability to pay for adequate care for its citizens nor the interest in even doing so. The government's chronic mismanagement of hundreds of billions of dollars puts the health of its citizens -- not to mention the fiscal health of the nation -- at risk. We need to learn our lesson.
Stewart's speech rang with the kind of articulate passion that often accompanies a run for office, and it will not be at all surprising if we soon hear calls for him to do just that. But if he does, I sincerely hope that he can see in the treatment of the 9/11 first responders the larger pattern of consistent government failure at the highest levels, and that he will join the ranks of those of us calling for alternatives to the disaster that government-run health care would be.
Dear John. Your party is more concerned about feeding, nursing and providing health care to ILLEGALS than helping American heroes.
Anytime the libtards insist they be given access to Billions of Dollars it makes me nervous. If corruption is a possibility with that crowd you can bet it is a certainty.
So the government HE LOVES failed him on his favorite issue?
Welcome to the conservative side John. We believe that is true for NEARLY EVERY ISSUE the government takes on.
Yes, even the military- but we NEED the government to do the military. We just need to keep a closer eye on the fraud and kickbacks. And that is why the military is supposed to stay out of politics and we have a CIVILIAN Commander-in-chief.
But they’ll manage to find zillions and pass bills tout de suite when it comes to illegals.
I have a genuine empathy for the First Responders...
Truly!
.....I have zero for Stewart ( which is not his real name, btw)
He’s surprised by the lack of caring ......they didn’t even show up
....yeah, so is our President, whom Stewart hates and ridicules
If anyone can help this pitiful situation, it’s not Stewart
Some one suggested in print he might run for office.....
Is that why he’s doing this?
Stewart said, "9/11 first responders shouldn't to decide whether to live, or to have a place to live," and that frankly no American should "face financial ruin" because of medical expenses.
New York City firefighters, police officers and EMTs have some of the best medical insurance coverage you'll find anywhere on the planet. How many of these people were actually faced with these medical costs?
As others have posted here over the last day or so, this "9/11 Victims Compensation Fund" has degraded into a massive fraud scheme where anyone who wants to claim that their medical issues are even remotely linked to 9/11 can file a claim as a "victim."
Here's the first clue that this is a disaster in the making: The original program from the mid-2000s was set up to extend until — get this — 2090. How many people who were working at Ground Zero are still going to be alive in 2090?
What's going to happen here is that on the coming decades the U.S. taxpayers are going to pay billions of dollars in "9/11 victim compensation" to the families of New York City workers who die of natural causes.
I do not see anywhere in the Constitution where it is the job of government to provide healthcare.
This is all just a variation on the old excuse for why socialism fails: “We just didn’t have the right people in charge”.
Stewart sees government fail. As it always fails. As a good progressive, he hopes that Bigger Government would do a better job.
“The fact is that our government has done a terrible job budgeting for the populations to whom it has already promised a safety net.”
Beginning in 1965 and continuing to the present day, the government has promised to pay WITHOUT LIMIT for all necessary or potentially useful hospital stays for people over 65.
How can you “budget” for that?
Why is it the government’s responsibility to fund what should be a charity? Let the insurance companies pay for the healthcare they promised to provide for WRT the first responders (surely they had insurance available if nothing else work comp). Anyone that can successfully sue the government for malfeasance, should do so, then anyone still not covered any other way should come from a charity (true charity, not that at the end of a barrel or at the tip of a knife such as government largesse).
I wonder if Stewart has contributed personally to this fund. Doubt it.
The 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund was originally set up by the U.S. government as a mechanism to keep people from suing anyone who might have had some direct or indirect culpability in the attacks -- particularly foreign Islamic governments and the airlines.
Anyone who collected money as a "victim" had to sign a waiver against any other legal claims they may have had.
There is a great Davey Crockett speech: "Not yours to give".
Crockett talks about people in need, and how decent people should help the needy to the extent they can. But he makes it clear that politicians picking the pockets of strangers to "generously" donate money to pet causes is not OK. The money is theirs to give.
Indeed. Our forefathers and founding fathers would have been shooting by now.
I. Saw a ‘First Responder’ on TV yesterday (sorry, I cannot remember which program) who said his father had to be persuaded to file a claim as the father wasn’t a First Responder.......he was just near the Towers when the terrorist attack happened and has suffered a few different types of cancer. So, anyone even near the Towers has been compensated. And how do they know the cancers appearing in people ‘near’ the Towers are related to the Towers coming down? Many, many people (probably 99.9%) in this country have several different types of cancer occurring in their bodies, but live outside Manhattan. This fund has turned into a slush fund for Manhattanites. In the end, Stewart was just grandstanding for Socialized Medicine. Typical Lib, tugging at our heartstrings for more and more money.
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
--James Madison
He’s just showing his foolishness of the past 20 years.
He helped make the situation, too bad he now sees the results of his efforts.
Your point is correct. I can’t think of a single city PD/Fire Department healthcare plan which is as comprehensive or as ‘complete’ as NYC. If the Feds sign up to be some back-up situation for them....why can’t the PD/Fire Department folks from across the nation get the same deal?
On the unfairness scale...this is a solid ‘10’. I’ll also note this....a lot of the folks who responded...had nothing to do with the Fire Department, the cops, or EMTs...they were regular construction folks who put hours into the initial 72 hours.
“Stewart is talented and intelligent,...”
*eyeroll*
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