Jerry Nadler: “What struck me about the hearings was several things. We've had hearings for a number of years, and I remember the first…”

“What struck me about the hearings was several things. We've had hearings for a number of years, and I remember the first hearing I attended was presided over by Senator Lieberman, a U.S. Senate hearing back in February of 2002. But none of this has changed. It's 5 years later, and it hasn't changed. Number one, you see the victims, the first responders, the people who dropped everything they were doing to help, to help victims that we thought people might be still alive under the debris. They weren't. Who then helped with the cleanup to get, who worked on the pile for 40 and 50 days. And we heard story after story of how healthy people were no longer healthy and they could no longer work and they could no longer breathe, how they now had to take 20 and 30 and 40 different pills and medications a day, how they couldn't pay for the medications, how they had lost their jobs, and because they lost their jobs they lost their health coverage and how the workers comp system didn't work for them. How a hero who was given an award for heroism at the World Trade Center, when he went for workers' comp, they said, Prove you were there.”