House passes Ground Zero healthcare bill

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"This is not charity for the first responders," King said. "This is giving them what they deserve."

The sponsors were responding to comments by several Republican Congress Members, including Reps. Joe Barton and Lamar Smith, both R-TX , claiming that the bill sets up an entitlement program.

"This bill creates a huge slush fund without oversight and with great potential for waste, abuse and fraud," Smith said.

"We certainly want to help the first responders," Barton said. "But what we don't want is to put on the backs of the American taxpayer a new, $7 billion entitlement program."

"You want to call this an entitlement?" Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-NY, shot back. "All right, it is an entitlement for first responders. They are entitled. They are entitled to our respect, and to their own healthcare."

President Obama said he supports the Zadroga bill. The Senate version, sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, is currently in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. It must be passed by the Senate before going to the President to be signed into law.

"This is a long awaited victory with a lot of suffering to get where we are today, for still more will die and suffer before this is finally voted into law," said Anthony Flammia, a retired New York City police officer and a 9/11 first responder.

The bill is named for James Zadroga, a New York City police detective who worked several weeks at Ground Zero, and is the first 9/11 responder to have his death in 2006 attributed to illness contracted at the site.

The bill would establish an $7 billion fund over 10 years, with roughly a third of that going to cover the healthcare costs of the victims, and the other two-thirds to compensate them for their losses. Over 20,000 people, according to government figures, have suffered since the event, either from exposure to the toxic dust of pulverized buildings and combusted chemicals, or injuries, or post-traumatic stress, or two or all three.