Images of New York City on Sept. 11, 2001 (Getty Images/Fox News)
New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, whose district in the Hudson Valley is home to many 9/11 first responders, reportedly indicated after the cuts that he was actively communicating with the Trump administration about them.
"This political chaos is jeopardizing the healthcare of heroes," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., added in a Sunday statement about the 16 fired WTCHP workers.
After political pressure in early April, the Trump administration eventually restored WTCHP Administrator Dr. John Howard to his role as head operator of the program, according to Lawler, and today all the staff members at WTCHP who were let go as part of the administration's DOGE efforts have been reinstated.
One of the 16 total staffers who were swept up in the cuts had already accepted a resignation buyout offered by the Trump administration.
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The program was developed to provide healthcare services to 9/11 victims, first responders and others involved in support services during the attacks who were exposed to harmful contaminants that day, as many were forced to inhale toxic dust and debris as they attempted to save lives.
The program, which was extended in 2015, is slated to run until 2090 and aims to ensure that patients directly affected by the 9/11 attacks in New York, the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, have zero out-of-pocket costs for any health complications that came as a result of the 9/11 attacks.
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"The chaos we see throughout the administration we're seeing 10 times over at the World Trade Center program," Schumer said over the weekend ahead of the reinstatements, according to New York's Spectrum News NY1. "We hear people are being fired, then we hear they're being restored; then we hear they're being fired, then they're being restored."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-admin-reinstates-9-11-survivors-program-staff-following-hhs-reorganization