UPDATE: The Senate on Tuesday, 4/21/20 passed this bill. The House is scheduled to vote on the measure on Thursday.
UPDATE 2: On Thursday 4/23/20, the house passed the bill. The President should sign this quickly.
UPDATE 3: On Friday 4/24/20, President Trump signed the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act.
News is breaking today that the senate has reached an agreement on another funding package that’s over $484 billion. Assuming it can pass a voice vote in the Senate today, then it will go to the house tomorrow. The package will fund the somewhat controversially implemented Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses, provider funding, and testing.
Andy Slavvit did a pretty good breakdown of the funding, so I’ll highlight the tweets he shared that apply to healthcare.
Part 1: $310 billion for payroll protection
-Trump/McConnell initial ask was $250 billion
-$60 billion additional set aside for smaller businesses that are unbanked— big Dem priority 3/— Andy Slavitt @ ? (@ASlavitt) April 21, 2020
This could be a big deal for a lot of healthcare practices and health IT vendors that likely have less than 500 employees and qualify. If you’re not familiar with the Paycheck Protection Program, you should be. You’ll need to go to your bank to learn about all the details and if you qualify. $310 billion is a lot of money, but banks probably already have loan applications for this amount. You’d hope the administration asked the banks how much of a backlog of applications they have to figure out this number, but who knows. If your application isn’t in line, get it in their ASAP.
Also for businesses — $50 billion in EIDL loans & $10 billion in EIDL grants and some money for SBA to administer it.
It needs to get to the right places! (And not the wrong ones) Hopefully those funds will help to do that. This needs visibility. 4/
— Andy Slavitt @ ? (@ASlavitt) April 21, 2020
This piece could apply to a number of people in healthcare. I think it will also be beneficial to many 1099 contractors that run their own business.
Part 2: Hospitals will receive $75 billion on top of the $100 billion in CARES. This should target rural from what I hear. But again there are all kinds of people with outstretched hands here. 5/
— Andy Slavitt @ ? (@ASlavitt) April 21, 2020
My guess is this will probably be distributed similar to the $100 billion in the CARES Act as well which was based on your Medicare and Medicaid billing.
Farzad Mostashari pointed out that at least for now the $75 billion includes more than just “hospitals”:
The good news is that the $75B is not “hospitals”. Like CARES Act, it’s all providers, and we can hope that @SecAzar @SeemaCMS will continue to consider the needs of all providers who are on the frontlines
The bad news is that there’s no specific set-aside for primary care pic.twitter.com/WoI3iVRKp2
— Farzad Mostashari (@Farzad_MD) April 21, 2020
Andy Slavitt said that this was still a point of discussion and a critical area that the senate was wrestling with.
Part 3: $25 billion for testing.
If there’s no testing, small business money won’t mean anything because many won’t be able to open or stay open. Here’s the breakdown …6/
— Andy Slavitt @ ? (@ASlavitt) April 21, 2020
This testing funding is being divided $11 billion to states and $14 billion to CDC, BARDA, NIH, NCI (Natl Cancer Institute, who is leading the serology world) plus some for research, development & deployment. Although, this seems to be a point of contention as well with Republicans wanting more money for states and Democrats wanting a Federal testing approach.
Senators and the President are saying that this is still just a “mini-bill” since they know some other priorities didn’t make it into this bill and so they’ll be working on a follow on bill once this one is done. The President has asked for the next bill to include things like: State/Local Governments for lost revenues from COVID 19, much needed Infrastructure Investments for Bridges, Tunnels, Broadband, Tax Incentives for Restaurants, Entertainment, Sports, and Payroll Tax Cuts to increase Economic Growth.
Of course, as is always the case with these bills, the devil is in the details. Plus, it still has to officially pass the Senate and House, but it looks like it’s heading that direction.
Healthcare organizations should also be taking a look at the $200 Million FCC program for COVID-19 Telehealth. They’ve only awarded $6.94 million of the $200 million available.
We’ll update this article as things progress.
