MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

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REP. JERROLD NADLER (D), NEW YORK: Well, about $3.5 billion will go to health care for the 9/11 first responders and survivors, and the balance will go to reopening the Victims Compensation Fund.

Congress, a week after 9/11, passed the Victims Compensation Fund to reimburse victims, or families of victims who had died, so that they didn"t have to sue the port authority, the airlines, and whoever else. But it was closed because--that is to say, you had a suit--you had to file by a certain date because it was not anticipated that people would get sick later and that their injuries would manifest themselves later. So part of this bill is to reopen that so people who got sick after the closing date, which was back in 2002 or "03, I forget --

SCHULTZ: Yes.

NADLER: -- could sue--not--I"m sorry, could avoid suing, could get compensated for their injuries, for their sicknesses. But most of it is for--but about half of it, a little better, is for medical care.

A lot of people are caught in a catch-22 because they could no longer work, because they were sick, they could no longer work. They lost their health insurance. And over a thousand people have died from this for several years. The government at all levels denied the obvious, that people were getting sick because of the toxins that they breathe, but now nobody denies that at all.

SCHULTZ: Yes. Well, this is what I think the American people--and I have to capture this as an American taxpayer as well. We"ve had over a thousand people die from being 9/11 responders. Yet, the people who are--

I guess you could say are still above the grass, you mean we"re going to deny them medical care when there"s a real good chance that they could pass away because of their volunteer effort on that big tragedy that took place on 9/11? I mean--

NADLER: That"s what has happened.

SCHULTZ: Go ahead, Congressman.

NADLER: People are losing their entire life savings, their entire livelihoods because of this. And what does it say--you know, Abraham Lincoln said that we have to care for him who shall have borne the battle, for his widow and his orphan, and that"s all this says. The Marine Corps says you never leave the wounded on the battlefield. That"s all this says.

And we passed--the Congress passed a couple of weeks after Pearl Harbor a very similar bill to take care of the civil victims of Pearl Harbor, which was the first attack on American territory. And this is simply what we have to do.

Carolyn Maloney and I have been working on this bill for about seven and a half years. It"s been made as tight as possible, as closed as possible, but we know that there are thousands of people under treatment, and there will be more thousands of people under treatment. And this will simply take care of the minimal obligations of the United States.

And there"s one other thing, too. Some of the people in the Senate, some of the Republicans, are saying--and in the House, too--that this is just for New York, it"s a New York problem. Well, the fact is, it was the United States that was attacked, not New York. And people came from all over the country who were first responders from every state in the union, and they"re sick, and some of them are dying all over the country, and this is for the benefit of everybody.

And finally, the next time, God forbid, we have a natural disaster whether manmade or--we have a disaster whether manmade or natural, we want people to rush in and to try to help people and save people, not to worry about, my God, I better not help because if I help and I get injured, who is going to take care of my family?

SCHULTZ: Yes. Well put.

Congressman, thanks for keeping up the fight.

SCHULTZ: Jerry Nadler in New York, here on THE ED SHOW tonight.

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