- Healthcare providers, including hospitals, are getting another $75 billion in stimulus funds to help them fight the coronavirus and to make up for the revenue they've lost.
- The legislation also helps researchers create tests for the virus and gives funds to health departments to track down people who are infected and those they've come in contact with.
- Congress is planning on passing another stimulus bill that lawmakers are calling "CARES 2," but the timing is unclear. The legislative branch isn't set to be in session again until May 4.
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Congress has provided another round of relief to the healthcare industry to fight the coronavirus pandemic and try to resume regular operations.
The bill, the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, passed the Senate by voice vote on Tuesday and is expected to go before the House Thursday. President Donald Trump has said he will sign it.
Lawmakers are considering the $484 billion relief package as an add-on to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or "CARES Act," passed in March.
The funding in the bill is supposed to help medical providers recoup losses and also sets a massive coronavirus testing effort into motion. Widespread testing is considered key to relaxing social distancing requirements — including allowing hospitals to resume routine procedures that have been put on hold — but some areas of the country are still struggling to find tests.
Healthcare providers can dig into the $320 billion Paycheck Protection Program
The largest chunk of funding in the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act went toward replenishing a loan program for small businesses.
The program, known as the Paycheck Protection Program, provides forgivable loans to small businesses that keep their employees on their payrolls. The loans are allowed to go to medical practices and to community pharmacies.
The funding is in addition to the initial $350 billion set aside for small businesses by the CARES Act, which ran out on April 16. SEC disclosures show several publicly traded healthcare, pharmaceutical, and tech companies have been approved to borrow millions of dollars under the program, and Small Business Administration loan reports show the healthcare industry has received nearly $40 billion in loans as of last week.
Healthcare providers will get $75 billion more funding
The bill provides $75 billion for medical providers, including hospitals, to help them recoup revenue they've lost and to help them pay for supplies, staff, and buildings they set up to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
The legislative text is similar to the $100 billion that was allocated in the CARES Act, which set up a dispute over whether funding was being properly allocated. Providers across the board, from nursing homes to pediatric services, have had to scale back their services and spend more on protective equipment, causing massive losses throughout the industry.
As with the CARES Act, decisions about how to allocate the bill's funding are left to the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS. That means providers across healthcare will be lobbying the agency for money.
The bill mandates that HHS write a report about where the funding went 60 days after the bill is signed into law, and that it continues to release reports every 60 days until the spending is depleted.
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said in a statement that he was concerned the money "will not reach the people and the places that need it most." He laid out a formula urging HHS to prioritize rural hospitals and healthcare providers who have a large number of patients covered by Medicaid.
The legislation sets aside $6 million for the HHS Office of the Inspector General to oversee where the funding goes. The oversight office has to write a report about the funding within three years.
Researchers will develop tests and public health workers will screen large numbers of people
Difficulty in achieving widespread coronavirus testing has been widely cited as one of the reasons the US was so slow to get a handle on the pandemic.
That effort has been speeding up — Dr. Deborah Birx, who has been coordinating the coronavirus task force for the White House, recently said there were 1 million tests available weekly. But the progress across states has been uneven, and the early tests didn't work.
In response, the legislation contains $25 billion in funding to create and manufacture new coronavirus tests and to widely test the US population. It also requires health agencies to regularly report to Congress how they plan to scale up testing.
Widespread testing to determine whether someone is infected with the coronavirus or has become immune to it is considered by the White House as key to reopening the economy and relaxing social distancing rules, particularly in the absence of a vaccine.
The latest round of funding adds to bills passed in March that provided $38 billion for coronavirus testing, treatments, and vaccines. Specifically, it sets aside $25 billion to the following:
- Allows for no more than $1 billion to go toward paying for tests for people who don't have health insurance
- $11 billion to help states carry out testing and keep track of how many people are infected. After people are tested, public health workers will need to find others they have been in contact with, test them, and also trace their contacts.
- Specifies $4.25 billion should go to areas of the US that have particularly high numbers of cases.
- $750 million to the Indian Health Service to go to tribes, tribal organizations, and urban Indian health organizations.
- Governors have to provide a report to the federal government within 30 days of the bill's passage about how they'll carry out the testing and how many tests they'll need.
- $1 billion for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to research and develop coronavirus tests.
- $22 million to pay for salaries at the Food and Drug Administration to have workers review and approve coronavirus tests.
- $1 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to use to track the coronavirus, to set up labs, and to help with contact tracing.
- A $1 billion "shark tank" fund for the National Institutes of Health to quickly work with the public and private sector to create millions of new coronavirus tests by August. The tests would detect whether someone currently has the virus or has antibodies showing they already had it. The provision, inspired by the reality show "Shark Tank," was created by GOP Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Roy Blunt of Missouri. The lawmakers pointed to ideas already under development, including wearable technologies and one idea to let people use their cell phones to take pictures of their test swab results and send them to a doctor.
- Another $8 million will go to NIH for research on testing.
- $825 million for Community Health Centers and rural clinics
HHS would need to issue a report about testing within 21 days of the bill becoming law. The report is also supposed to include the number of hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Within 180 days the agency has to break down cases by race, ethnicity, age, and sex.
Dominick Reuter contributed reporting.
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