House Passes 9/11 Health Care Bill

The House approved a new health care bill about providing medical treatment to sick workers who clean up the world trade center after 9/11 (CNN).

As many workers answered in surveys and interviews, they indeed need health care. Therefore, the House made a huge step forward in terms of protecting human right of these workers after long impassioned debates. Among these debates, Republican and Democrats hold opposite opinions, which are highly compatible to their traditional ideologies. Republicans are worried that this bill might increase the federal deficit and increase tax, while Democrats found it very necessary to create a common good for these sick workers. Learning their different views, I came up with several questions for Republicans: What is the purpose of solving the current deficit? Aren't creating better welfare programs and improving people's living standard part of its purpose? Does the "golden rule" lowering the tax always create the best result?

In addition to different views of the Republicans and Democrats, we should think about how we can best implement this bill. As reported by New York Times, a first responder died of a common symptom of most first responders, but "the medical examiner concluded that his death is not directly related to the 9/11 attack". We want to make sure that people are not using this new health care bill to request a compensation for a sickness unrelated to 9/11, just as many non-disabled people are using disabled parking spaces.