Hospitals to Biden: Don't contact reduction funds or restore sequester cuts to pay for infrastructure
Hospital teams are demanding that President Joe Biden and Congress keep away from diverting unspent COVID-19 reduction funds to assist pay for a bipartisan infrastructure package deal.
The gathering of teams wrote to the White Home and congressional leaders Tuesday outlining main considerations with the bipartisan framework for infrastructure that’s anticipated to be thought-about by Congress in July. They had been additionally involved with restoring cuts to Medicare funds that had been paused because of the pandemic.
“The necessity for these funds stays robust, as many healthcare services are nonetheless recovering from the affect of the pandemic, and sadly caseloads have elevated in some areas of the nation because of new virus variants and an absence of vaccinations,” the letter stated.
America’s Important Hospitals, the American Hospital Affiliation, the Federation of American Hospitals and the Affiliation of American Medical Faculties had been among the many 9 teams and organizations that signed onto the letter.
RELATED: Biden indicators $1.9T COVID-19 package deal that enhances ACA subsidies, rural hospital funding
The pay-for was included in a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package deal Biden introduced June 24. The package deal, supported by 10 Republican senators, included funding on quite a lot of infrastructure objects corresponding to modernizing roads and knowledge expertise programs.
However the framework requires repurposing any unused COVID-19 reduction funds as a method to pay for the infrastructure upgrades.
“As you realize, hospitals and well being programs and different healthcare suppliers are awaiting the distribution of further {dollars} in supplier reduction funds in addition to the lately allotted $8.5 billion for rural healthcare suppliers,” the letter stated.
The Division of Well being and Human Providers has beforehand stated there’s roughly $24 billion out of the $178 billion appropriated as a part of the CARES Act that also must be distributed.
Suppliers that acquired cash by June 30, 2020, must spend all of their funding by Wednesday or else return the funding. Suppliers that received cash later have extra flexibility to make use of up their cash.
One other plan would reinstall a 2% reduce to Medicare funds to suppliers. The cuts had been put in as a part of sequestration however paused final 12 months to assist suppliers going through monetary income drops from the pandemic.
