Congress leaves $3B for 9/11 health fund out of spending deal

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised but couldn’t deliver $3 billion needed to plug a looming deficit in the health program that treats ill 9/11 responders and survivors.

And it’s Mitch McConnell’s fault, Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday.

Schumer had tried to attach the cash to must-pass pieces of legislation earlier in the year. But when he encountered resistance from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) in one instance and Republicans in others, Schumer pledged to get the money in the year-end budget deal.

“We will get this,” he said in July. “We’re going to get it done.”

That declaration fell flat early Tuesday morning, when lawmakers released the long-delayed $1.7 trillion government funding bill without the $3 billion or even $514 million that Defense Department responders hoped would allow them to join the 9/11 health program.

Schumer said he was bushwhacked by the Senate Republican leader, telling the Daily News that the money was in the so-called omnibus spending bill as recently as last weekend. But then McConnell “did a 180,” and started objecting, Schumer said.

“He was getting pressure from his right wing that the bill has too much spending. He doesn’t want to do $3 billion more,” Schumer said. “We pushed for two days and he finally said no.

“It was totally on his shoulders, and we made it an extremely high priority,” Schumer added. “But he said no.”

The World Trade Center Health Program estimated that it will have to warn 120,000 enrollees next October that it will have to plan for cuts. The first of those would likely happen in 2024, when the program would stop admitting new members. That could bar treatments for responders who are healthy now but could be diagnosed with 9/11-linked cancer later. In 2025, program cuts would kick in.

A spokesman for McConnell denied Schumer’s version of events.

“Sen. Schumer had an entire Congress to offer 9/11 victim legislation on the floor,” the spokesman said in a statement. “Instead, he waited until the last possible moment to propose the current deal after negotiations were long closed out.”

Schumer, however, said Republicans had been unwilling to cut a deal to work on a 9/11 bill all year. “It takes three weeks, if they want to delay it,” Schumer said. “But also if they want to add amendments that would kill it or jaundice it, you lose….