'We recognize this is horribly unfair.' 9/11 victim fund will cut payouts by up to 70% as claims sur

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post

National Security
‘We recognize this is horribly unfair.’ 9/11 victim fund will cut payouts by up to 70% as claims surge

By Devlin Barrett
February 15 at 2:01 PM

The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund plans to cut future payouts in half — and in some cases by as much as 70 percent — as it struggles with a surge of new claims from those who have gotten sick and the families of those who have died, officials announced Friday.

The fund was opened by the federal government in 2011 to compensate for deaths and illnesses linked to toxic exposure at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pa., after terrorists crashed four hijacked airliners in 2001. To date, the $7.3 billion fund has paid about $5 billion to roughly 21,000 claimants. About 700 were for deaths that occurred long after the attacks.

Now, faced with more than 19,000 additional unpaid claims, the math has become painful.

“We recognize that this is horribly unfair, particularly because we have spent the balance of this program paying claims at full value, and claimants who are coming in now are going to receive less,” said Rupa Bhattacharyya, who administers the fund. “Unfortunately, the law really leaves us no choice. This is the fairest way we could come up with to do it.”
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Devlin Barrett writes about national security and law enforcement for The Washington Post. He has previously worked at the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press and the New York Post, where he started as a copy boy. Follow https://twitter.com/DevlinBarrett

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/we-recognize-this-is-horribly-unfair-911-victim-fund-will-cut-payouts-by-up-to-70-percent-as-claims-surge/2019/02/15/6dea9648-30a8-11e9-86ab-5d02109aeb01_story.html

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David Fahrenthold Retweeted

https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold

BREAKING: 9/11 Victim Fund to cut payments by 50-70% as it faces surging claims for deaths and illnesses

Link to tweet

[Honeycombe8]

1. Oh, dear.

Actually, I thought lump sum payments had been made, rather than ongoing payments.

[cstanleytech]

5. They should have amended the law to allow all of them claim medicare as medical expenses are

usually the thing that costs the most and having that covered can help alot even with a cut in $$$.

[Honeycombe8]

6. There's no money in Medicare to cover a huge unexpected ongoing expense.

I don't see how Medicare could have covered it. Of course, those who are 65 or over have their medical bills covered, but they have to buy private supplemental insurance, and there are some deductibles and such.

[turbinetree]

2. Since they were mostly Saudi Nationalist and some and or all of them were

funded by the Saudi's, I really think that crown empire in that country should pay ...........................they knew, the report basically says so............................they knew................

Many of us lost our United / American airline job's because of that, and the thousands of others that lost everything..............

[BigmanPigman]

3. I think I read that our govt made a political

deal with the Saudi govt about not suing them for anything related to 9/11. The Saudis seem to get away with murder (literally).

[turbinetree]

4. Yes, they did........................................

[Progressive Jones]

8. I say take the Saudi's money, and remove Saudi Arabia from the map.

The Saudi's have never been "repaid" for what their people did on September 11, 2001. The Bush administration failed miserably by not violently retaliating for those attacks. Sorry if this offends anyone, but it's how I've felt from the start.
We know that the only reason was Big Oil.

[ROB-ROX]

7. DAMN REPUBLICANS

They LIE, STEAL, and CHEAT from people. I am not surprised these evil people are doing this AGAIN.