New York lawmakers trying to revive 9/11 health care bill

Lawmakers are trying to bridge the gap between colleagues on the left and right in a bid to provide greater health coverage for 9/11 workers, The Wall Street Journal reports. "The bill was voted down [in the House] late Thursday night amid angry partisan finger-pointing, and now Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney and others have begun weighing options to make the bill more tolerable to factions on the right and left. … Already, Democrats are signaling a shift in strategy. Ms. Maloney said that when the House reconvenes in September, she will seek a straight-majority vote. That strategy would have to address the Democrats' underlying fears about such a vote: If given the chance, Republicans will add amendments on immigration and health care that would force the majority to cast tough votes on those issues just two months before the election." Democrats decided for the two-thirds majority vote to stop Republicans from offering such amendments, especially one that would stop 9/11 care payments from being made to illegal immigrants. Lawmakers are also arm-wrestling about how to pay for the $7.4 billion bill in order to attract the majority of votes (Barrett, 8/3).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.