Manhattan Rep. Jerrold Nadler will hold a congressional hearing this week on the mounting economic losses of ailing Ground Zero rescue workers – and Mayor Bloomberg’s refusal to use a $1 billion insurance fund to help them.
“This is a national disgrace, what’s happening to us,” said retired NYPD Detective Mike Valentin, who will speak for World Trade Center responders at the Judiciary Subcommittee hearing Tuesday in Washington, DC.
Valentin, 43, was forced to retire last year because of restrictive-airway disease and other illnesses.
The father of three receives a line-of-duty disability pension but has no life insurance. He worries he will become bedridden, but he can’t afford nursing care.
One of roughly 1,500 NYPD officers suffering 9/11-related health woes, Valentin said he had to sell his Long Island home in 2005 and tap his 401(k) retirement money to pay debts. He and his wife and kids live in his parents’ two-family Long Island home.
Also scheduled to testify is Washington, DC, lawyer Ken Feinberg, who ran the federal Victim Compensation Fund. He argues the fund should be reopened for responders whose illnesses developed after a 2003 application deadline.
The city’s top lawyer, Michael Cardozo, is expected to tell the panel the city will gladly turn over the $1 billion insurance fund – but only if granted immunity from further liability.