Nowhere is #NeverForget honored more in name and less in practice than in Washington, among the politicians and appointees who run it. Some will tell you our elected officials only remember 9/11 the first week of September, or when they're running for office.

After more than 20 years of advocacy on behalf of the 9/11 community, advocacy that helped pass nearly 20 pieces of federal legislation, I can tell you that's not quite true. What would actually help the 9/11 community is if the politicians and appointees who use #NeverForget as a slogan would #PleaseForget us instead. Stop treating 9/11 responders and survivors like a political football. Stop making us fight, year after year, for health care and compensation we were promised in the aftermath of the attacks.

#NeverForget was on full display when Congress passed the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act in December 2010, and President Barack Obama signed it into law the following January. We knew it was only a start, with time and condition limits built in, but we got to work, and over the next decade we added covered conditions and secured funding for the programs through 2090.

In 2019, after Jon Stewart publicly shamed the members of Congress blocking that funding, lawmakers passed the Never Forget the Heroes Act, which........

© USA TODAY