Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Dire White House Warnings Don't Shake Loose Covid Funds Consensus
Politico: Covid Aid Faces Uncertain Path On Capitol Hill As White House Warns Of Severe Consequences
White House officials on Thursday warned that key pandemic programs could soon run out of money if Congress fails to quickly authorize $15.6 billion in new Covid-19 funding.“ We will have to stop a number of components of our program that are essential,” press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Thursday. “If we had that money to move around we would be moving it. Our assessment is that we need this additional funding in order to meet the needs of the American public.” (Ollstein, 3/10)
Roll Call: Senate Clears $1.5 Trillion Fiscal 2022 Omnibus Spending Bill
A massive spending bill for the fiscal year that began over five months ago is headed to President Joe Biden's desk after the Senate cleared it for his signature late Thursday, putting an end to a frenzied stretch of negotiations in both chambers this week. On a 68-31 vote, the Senate passed the 2,700-page, $1.5 trillion omnibus containing all 12 fiscal 2022 spending bills, $13.6 billion in supplemental appropriations to address the crisis in Ukraine and a lengthy list of unrelated measures fortunate enough to ride on the must-pass vehicle. ... Leaders in both parties spent hours Thursday negotiating with GOP senators, trying to reach an agreement on amendments they were seeking that would allow for a unanimous consent agreement to proceed to the bill quickly. (McPherson, Weiss and Lerman, 3/10)
PBS NewsHour: Millions Of U.S. Children Could Face Hunger As Omnibus Bill Moves Without School Meal Waivers
School nutrition and child development experts say millions of children in the United States could go hungry as soon as this summer, because the $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill moving through Congress this week failed to include waivers that gives schools flexibility in preparing and distributing food to students. That’s even as a growing number of students are expected to need remedial help to overcome learning loss driven by remote classes and quarantine.During the COVID pandemic, Congress authorized the federal Department of Agriculture to grant waivers that covered rising food prices caused by supply chain issues. Those waivers reimbursed schools at higher rates for the cost of school meals and allowed schools to prepare food that families could either pick up or have delivered at or near their homes. (Santhanham, 3/10)
Modern Healthcare: Critical-Access Hospitals Left Out Of Congress' Telehealth Extension
Critical-access hospitals warn that they will no longer be able to bill Medicare for telehealth services when the public health emergency ends after they were excluded from the government spending bill that the U.S. House of Representatives passed Wednesday. The $1.5 trillion package would extend Medicare coverage of telehealth for five months after the end of the public health emergency for several types of providers, but not for critical-access hospitals, which primarily serve rural areas. It is not yet clear why CAHs weren't included, but advocates say they are going to fight to ensure the issue is fixed before the PHE ends, which could be as soon as July. (Hellmann, 3/10)
KHN: ‘What The Health?’ Podcast: Congress Shelves Covid Funding For Now
Congress is moving toward completion of its annual spending bills for the fiscal year that started last October, but a last-minute snag jettisoned from the bill the Biden administration’s requested funding for covid prevention and treatment. Meanwhile, a federal court has ruled that the administration overstepped in the dispute-resolution portion of its measure to bar “surprise” medical bills, after doctors and hospitals charged that the formula would favor health insurers in billing disagreements. (3/10)
Where have covid relief funds gone so far? —
The New York Times: Where $5 Trillion In Pandemic Stimulus Money Went
Stimulus bills approved by Congress beginning in 2020 unleashed the largest flood of federal money into the United States economy in recorded history. Roughly $5 trillion went to households, mom-and-pop shops, restaurants, airlines, hospitals, local governments, schools and other institutions around the country grappling with the blow inflicted by Covid-19. Economists largely credit these financial jolts with helping the U.S. economy recover more quickly than it otherwise would have from the largest downturn since the Great Depression: The pandemic recession was the shortest on record, lasting only three months. (Parlapiano, Solomon, Ngo and Cowley, 3/11)
And 2020 Census undercounts could affect political clout for decades —
The New York Times: 2020 Census Undercounted Hispanic, Black And Native American Residents
The estimates released on Thursday covered the count of 323.2 million people who were living in households on April 1, 2020, the official census date. Counts of others, such as prison inmates and students in college dormitories, pushed the total population count to 331.45 million. ... Although the bureau did not say how many people it missed entirely, they were mostly people of color, disproportionately young ones. The census missed counting 4.99 of every 100 Hispanics, 5.64 of every 100 Native Americans and 3.3 of every 100 African Americans. In contrast, for every 100 residents counted, the census wrongly added 1.64 non-Hispanic whites and 2.62 ethnic Asians. (Wines and Cramer, 3/10)
