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The five lawmakers who voted against $484B in coronavirus relief

The $484 billion relief package passed in a 388-5 vote just two days after the Senate unanimously approved it. The measure provides critical funding for small business loans, hospitals and virus testing. It now heads to President Trump’s desk for his expected signature.

The sole Democrat to cast a no vote was liberal freshman firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), who argued the series of relief packages passed by Congress have not gone far enough to provide assistance to working-class people or safeguards to ensure mom-and-pop businesses receive funding before big companies.

“It is a joke when Republicans say they have urgency around this bill. The only folks that they have urgency around are [chain restaurants] like Ruth’s Chris Steak House and Shake Shack. Those are the people getting assistance in this bill,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a fiery floor speech before the vote, where she noted that her Bronx and Queens district has been among the hardest hit by the coronavirus.

“You are not trying to fix this bill for mom and pops,” she added.

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https://thehill.com/homenews/house/494419-the-five-lawmakers-who-voted-against-484b-in-coronavirus-relief

DID RUTH CHRIS STEAKHOUSE GET CANADIAN BAILOUT LIKE THEY GOT IN THE USA

On The Trail: Trump's demands for loyalty extend to scientists

TRUMPS REVISIONIST LOYALTY DEMANDS OUT DOES STALIN

BY REID WILSON - 04/23/2020

The Trump administration's decision to sideline one of the government’s top vaccine specialists at the height of a global coronavirus pandemic has shocked scientists and science advocates who say the president is placing a greater value on loyalty to himself than on the facts and data that could save lives.

The administration this week forced out Rick Bright, the head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and an acting deputy assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for preparedness and response.

BARDA, the nation's top vaccine research organization, had entered into a partnership with Johnson & Johnson just weeks ago to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus that has killed tens of thousands of Americans.

Bright's ouster came after he voiced skepticism that two drugs President Trump had called potential “game changers” in the battle against the coronavirus — hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine — would actually prove effective.

Trump urged the Food and Drug Administration to approve the two treatments for use in Covid-19 patients in March, and Fox News hosts had been touting their potential — until several studies around the world were halted because the drugs did not show promise in treating Covid-19 or, in the case of a study of Veterans Administration patients given the drugs, fatality rates were actually higher.

Bright said his ouster was retaliation for speaking out in internal administration debates.

“I believe this transfer was in response to my insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the COVID-19 pandemic into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit,” Bright said in a statement. “Specifically, and contrary to misguided directives, I limited the broad use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, promoted by the Administration as a panacea, but which clearly lack scientific merit.”

Trump said Wednesday he had never heard of Bright.

But scientists said Bright's ouster fits a broader pattern that Trump established in the earliest days of his administration to bend hard data to his own benefit — or to squelch the scientists who challenged his beliefs on climate change and environmental regulations.

“The Trump administration has consistently worked to disregard inconvenient science, and it doesn't take much to be inconvenient,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. “This can have immediate and possibly fatal impacts if it means that ineffective or harmful drugs are mindlessly hawked.”

The pattern has continued as the coronavirus pandemic has spread. Trump initially downplayed the threat of the virus, even as the World Health Organization declared it a public health emergency of international concern. Trump later put a hold on American funding for the global agency.

When a top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Nancy Messonnier, said in February that the spread of the virus to the United States was “inevitable,” Trump threatened to fire her.

When Trump put Vice President Mike Pence in control of the administration’s response, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, canceled several appearances on television shows. CDC director Robert Redfield has walked back statements or clashed with the media — as recently as Thursday — after his comments had been construed in ways that seem to contradict Trump's rosy forecasts. Trump himself has retweeted a post that included a hashtag to fire Fauci.

“In the pandemic, there's no greater time when you actually need the expertise up front. Nobody expects there isn't going to be any politics, but manipulating the information and suppressing the information is deadly,” said Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Literally every person in the country is put at immediate risk.”

In a paper to be published Thursday, Rosenberg's group will report on a survey from last year showing high levels of dissatisfaction among government scientists who say they are demonized and their expertise dismissed.

A White House spokesperson denied any distance between Trump and his scientific advisors, including Fauci, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx and FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn.

“Despite the media’s ridiculous efforts to somehow create distance between the President and his top health experts, it is simply fake news. President Trump has relied on and consulted with Dr. Adams, Dr. Birx, Dr. Fauci, Dr. Hahn, Dr. Redfield, and many others as he has confronted this unforeseen, unprecedented crisis and put the full power of the federal government to work to slow the spread, save lives, and place this great country on a data-driven path to opening up again,” the spokesman, Judd Deere, said in an email.

For years, the Trump administration has been accused of altering studies, deleting mentions of climate change, stifling its own scientists and obscuring government data. The Union of Concerned Scientists has documented 126 such incidents since Trump took office in 2017; the Sabin Center counts 417 events, the most recent of which was Bright’s dismissal from BARDA.


Trump’s habit of dismissing scientists in the name of political expediency is a potential threat to longstanding international cooperation between America and its chief allies, all of whom are the world's most significant funders of scientific research.

“Globally, we have been unbelievably important as a very large science enterprise with great freedom to pursue research, to interact with industry and to work internationally,” Rosenberg said. “The U.S. is no longer the trusted partner that we once were, because nobody knows whether we're going to be there.”

He said even tossing around ideas such as defunding the World Health Organization or pulling out of international agreements “signals to the world that the U.S. as an international technical and scientific partner is going to change with the political winds to a much greater extent that it has before.”

“In other words, we are an unreliable partner,” Rosenberg said.

Trump has touted his own scientific knowledge. In a visit to CDC headquarters in early March, Trump said his hosts had asked him how he knew so much about the virus he had been downplaying just days earlier.

“I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it,” Trump said. “Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”

Fauci is perhaps the most intriguing case study in how Trump treats scientists, largely because he has been around Washington long enough to carry a brand of his own. He has alternated between insisting there is no distance between himself and the president who heeds his advice and making statements that directly contradict what Trump has said, sometimes only moments before.

On Thursday, Trump told reporters twice that the virus “may not come back at all” in the fall, citing “ten different people” without naming them. Fauci said he was “convinced” that the virus will resurge in the fall, citing Redfield.

Morgan Chalfant contributed reporting.

Actor John Cho: 'Stand up for your fellow Americans' amid racism over the coronavirus pandemic

BY MARINA PITOFSKY - 04/23/20 

© Getty Images

Actor John Cho penned a new op-ed addressing racism experienced by Asian American people amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“I called my parents a few nights ago to tell them to be cautious when stepping out of the house, because they might be targets of verbal or even physical abuse. It felt so strange. Our roles had flipped,” the "Star Trek" and "Harold & Kumar" star wrote in the piece published Wednesday.

“My plea mirrored the admonitions I received from them as a child growing up in Houston. The world, they cautioned, was hostile and it viewed us as strangers. So they warned me to stick close to my family. Close to my kind,” he continued.

At the end of last month, attacks against Asian American people skyrocketed to approximately 100 per day, according to Rep. Judy Chu.

Cho said that as he became a famous actor, “In some ways, I began to lead a life devoid of race.”

“But I’ve learned that a moment always comes along to remind you that your race defines you above all else,” he added.

He remarked on a time in 2004 when he was traveling with fellow actor Kal Penn and Penn’s friend, identified as Gabe. Gabe, who is white, forgot to remove a hunting knife from his backpack. Cho and Gabe were not stopped by airport security, while Penn, who is the child of Indian immigrants, had his bag searched.

“Asian Americans are experiencing such a moment right now. The pandemic is reminding us that our belonging is conditional. One moment we are Americans, the next we are all foreigners, who ‘brought’ the virus here,” Cho wrote in the op-ed.

“Like fame, the ‘model minority’ myth can provide the illusion of ‘raceless-ness.’ Putting select Asians on a pedestal silences those who question systemic injustice. Our supposed success is used as proof that the system works — and if it doesn’t work for you, it must be your fault,” he added.

Cho, who was born in South Korea, also remarked on his U.S. naturalization ceremony in 1990.

“I remember being surprised by the judge at the ceremony asking me whether I would defend my country in uniform if called upon. I wasn’t expecting that question, though my friends and I had been wondering about a possible draft, and I took my time to truly consider it. I answered yes and I meant it,” Cho said.

“I claimed the citizenship my parents wanted for me and I think I’ve spent my life earning it. I’m not going to let anyone tell me or anyone who looks like me that we are not really American,” he added.

Cho called on everyone to reject hate in their communities, saying: “Please don’t minimize the hate or assume it’s somewhere far away. It’s happening close to you. If you see it on the street, say something. If you hear it at work, say something. If you sense it in your family, say something. Stand up for your fellow Americans.”

Inequities in COVID-19 are tragic but preventable

BY ELAINE HERNANDEZ, COURTNEY BOEN AND RICHARD M. CARPIANO, 

OPINION CONTRIBUTORS — 04/23/20 

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

© Getty Images

We’re told that pandemics are “great equalizers,” impacting rich and poor alike. Yet black, Hispanic, and lower income individuals are dying from COVID-19 at disproportionately high rates.

For those of us who study health inequities, this tragic news is unsurprising. It is rooted in policies and practices that reinforce racial, ethnic and class inequalities. These factors predate the pandemic, but also put people at greater risk of COVID-19.

Failing to act is counter to extensive research that demonstrates how policies can narrow health inequities. Paid sick leave polices have an equalizing effect and reduce disease spread. Economic policies like the Earned Income Tax Credit and minimum wage increases can improve public health and reduce risk of death from multiple causes. Uniform health screening and treatment protocols improve patient outcomes and minimize health inequalities. Even initiatives like mandatory seat belt laws and smoking bans can reduce inequities in health risks.

The question is whether we have the will to use this knowledge and act. Here are approaches to address underlying social and economic conditions that put communities at health risk from COVID-19 and other causes.

Establish Worker ProtectionsTo prevent infection spread, we need worker protections (including paid sick leave and livable wage laws) for all. These are especially important for our most vulnerable essential workers, including grocery, warehouse, and care workers.

People in unstable jobs and without access to paid sick days face increased risk of poor health, both from chronic disease and COVID-19. Black, Hispanic, and low-income individuals are more likely to hold such jobs compared to white and higher income persons. Stable, living wage jobs afford people the resources they need to meet basic health needs, and paid sick leave allows workers to care for themselves and others without worry of losing their income or job.

Deploy Uniform Testing Protocols

We need uniform infection and antibody testing, regardless of race, income, or insurance status. Community and drive-through testing sites are disproportionately located in high-income, white areas, despite higher infection risk in poor and predominately black and Hispanic neighborhoods. And patients with COVID-19 symptoms are less likely to be tested if they are black.

These patterns mirror prior evidence. For example, educational and income disparities in screening rates emerged when mammograms for cancer became available. And when being treated for pain, providers are less likely to prescribe pain medications to black versus white patients.

Equalize Access to Health Care

We must ensure equitable access to health care and reduce administrative burdens for people to enroll. Concerns about acquiring COVID-19 and incurring costs may mean many avoid seeking care for ongoing or new health problems.

Health care systems should also share treatment protocols—including telemedicine and innovative clinical care models—to lessen the burden on providers to reinvent the wheel, while also reducing bias and expanding access to quality care.

And within hospitals and clinics, because black, Latino, and low-income individuals are more likely to be in poor health prior to COVID-19 infection, we need carefully-designed protocols that avoid exacerbating inequities in survival.

Provide Social and Economic Stability

Economic security is critical for health. Federal and state economic relief policies must equitably address inequalities in social and economic conditions that shaped health risks long before the pandemic.

Consider that unsafe and substandard housing affect residents’ chronic disease risk and ability to socially distance safely. Black, Hispanic, and lower income individuals are more likely to live in such places.

Meanwhile, discrimination and other daily stressors increase chances for heart disease, an important risk factor for COVID-19 death. Black, Hispanic, and lower income persons have especially high stress levels. These examples show how inequities in social and economic conditions due to racism and other inequalities shape risk for COVID-19 and related complications.

COVID-19 may be new, but the inequities it produces are not. If we want to alter recurring patterns—for COVID-19 and other health issues—we must address the social and economic conditions that put people at risk of health risks.

A pandemic reminds us that our lives—and fates—are interconnected. It also spotlights existing inequalities that unfairly leave the most vulnerable bearing the greatest economic and human loss. It’s time to decide what we’re willing to do to change that.

Elaine Hernandez (PhD, MPH) is an Assistant Professor of sociology at Indiana University-Bloomington. She examines how health inequalities emerge and persist across generations, as well as policy approaches to ameliorate them. 

Courtney Boen (PhD, MPH) is an Assistant Professor of sociology and demography at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research examines the patterns and drivers of racial and social class inequalities in population health. She previously worked in public health policy at the state and local levels.

Richard M. Carpiano (PhD, MPH) is Professor of Public Policy and Sociology at the University of California, Riverside. His research focuses on social, economic, community, and policy factors that impact health and health disparities.

Coronavirus: UK Doctors launch legal action over government's PPE guidance

Meenal Viz and Nishant Joshi, a husband and wife expecting a child, have been exposed to patients with coronavirus.

Thursday 23 April 2020, UK

paramedic wears PPE

Two doctors are launching legal action against the government's advice over personal protective equipment (PPE).

Meenal Viz and Nishant Joshi, who are married and expecting a baby, have been exposed to patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus.

According to their solicitors, Bindmans, the couple are concerned that current PPE guidance and availability is inadequate to protect them from infection.

Paramedics and staff at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital wearing various items of PPE

In a statement, Dr Viz and Dr Joshi said: "We are incredibly concerned at the ever-growing numbers of healthcare workers who are becoming seriously unwell and dying due to COVID-19.

"It is the government's duty to protect its healthcare workers, and there is great anxiety amongst staff with regards to safety protocols that seem to change without rhyme or reason."

There has been a shortage of clinical gowns in some areas

Public Health England, which responded to the legal action on behalf of the government, said UK government guidance was "consistent" with advice given by World Health Organisation.

A spokesman for PHE said: "The safety of those working on the frontline in health and social care is our number one priority. The UK guidance, written with NHS leaders and agreed by all 4 CMOs, in consultation with royal and medical colleges, recommends the safest level of personal protective equipment (PPE).

"The WHO has confirmed that UK guidance is consistent with what it recommends for the highest risk procedures."

It comes after a flight carrying PPE - urgently needed by front line health workers as they treat COVID-19 patients in the UK - arrived from Turkey yesterday following days of delays.

The total consignment of 84 tonnes includes 400,000 clinical gowns, but it is not clear how much of it was on the flight.

Coronavirus: Where does the PPE in UK hospitals come from?

On Tuesday, Sky News revealed Britain only made a formal request to Turkey over the consignment on Sunday after Robert Jenrick, the housing minister, said the equipment was en route.

The delay has caused embarrassment for the government, which is already under significant pressure because of a shortage of gowns and other protective gear worn by frontline staff.

Ministers previously faced criticism over a lack of PPE given to medical workers - with one hospice boss revealing she has been forced to "beg, borrow and steal" protective gear.

Another doctor told Sky News he appealed to his own patients for PPE earlier this month after facing a shortage.

JOHN BIRCH IS PLEASED 

Trump escalates WHO fight by redirecting funds to other groups

BY LAURA KELLY - THE HILL - 04/23/20

The U.S. is starting to shift its World Health Organization (WHO) contributions to other health-focused groups, marking an escalation in President Trump’s fight with the WHO.

The move is part of the Trump administration’s efforts to punish the WHO after suspending payments to the global health body pending a “review” of its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“For every contract or dollar flowing today, we’re just taking WHO off the table,” Jim Richardson, director of foreign assistance at the State Department, said in a press briefing Wednesday. “We’re going to provide that assistance to these other organizations in order to get the job done. Our system simply can’t wait.”

“At the end of the day, this should be about saving lives, not about saving a bureaucracy,” he added.

John Barsa, who became acting head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) last month, said the pause in WHO funding has allowed his agency to pursue contributions to other on-the-ground initiatives.

“During this pause, what USAID and other entities are doing — we’re looking for alternate partners to carry out the important work,” Barsa said at the same briefing. “We’re going with existing programs outside of the World Health Organization.”

Barsa said a funding mechanism already exists as part of a USAID pilot program that he expects will be formalized within a week.

But global health policy experts are warning against handicapping the sole international body capable of directing a global response as the world braces for coronavirus outbreaks among some of the most vulnerable populations.

“There needs to be a moment where we look back and understand who knew what, and when,” said Amanda Glassman, executive vice president of the Center for Global Development. “But certainly I don’t think now is the time for reform and re-creation, I think we have to get through this crisis.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has started laying the groundwork for a U.S. exit from the WHO, accusing the agency’s leadership of failing to exercise authority over China for its handling of the outbreak, which originated in Wuhan.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve had to deal with the shortcomings of this organization that sits inside the United Nations,” Pompeo said in a Fox News interview Wednesday. “We need a fix. We need a structural fix for the WHO.”

The U.S. owes an estimated $203 million to the WHO for its biennial operating budget, which includes funds owed for 2019, according to the WHO. That amount is calculated by each member state’s wealth and population.

But voluntary contributions — funds provided on top of required dues — make up a bulk of the budget. The U.S. provided up to $656 million for 2018-19.

State Department officials suggest moving contributions away from the WHO could be permanent.

Glassman, of the Center for Global Development, called this a “dumb idea.”

“No existing program can replace the work of the WHO,” she said in an email, noting that individual organizations can’t coordinate large-scale projects like vaccine development.

“A U.S. non-governmental organization is not able to obtain and share genetic sequences from around the world that enable a fit-for-purpose COVID-19 or influenza vaccine to protect U.S. citizens,” she said. “A U.S. NGO cannot coordinate the more than 70 COVID-19 vaccine trials and their data.”

The absence of U.S. contributions to the WHO could have a ripple effect on the agency’s COVID-19 response, but it will also take away from health initiatives like HIV/AIDS prevention and vaccine programs, such as the eradication of polio.

“No agency, country, or organization could step in and do the work of WHO, particularly in the middle of a global health emergency,” said Loyce Pace, president and executive director of the Global Health Council, a consortium of nonprofit organizations, corporations and universities that work on responding to global health issues.

“To suggest that feels dangerous and irresponsible,” Pace added. “They play an essential role coordinating efforts across sectors and providing guidance across regions that would be very difficult to replace and nearly impossible to do in real time.”

Pompeo and State Department officials have increased their attacks on the WHO and its leadership, saying the director-general has failed to enforce the agency’s own policies against member nations' violations, namely China.

Pompeo has zeroed in on the WHO’s International Health Regulations (IHR), guidelines established in the wake of the 2003 SARS outbreak that instruct countries when and how they should alert the world to a possible health threat.

“We strongly believe that the Chinese Communist Party did not report the outbreak of the new coronavirus in a timely fashion to the World Health Organization,” Pompeo said Wednesday, citing the IHR guidelines.

He went on to say that the WHO also failed to call out China’s noncompliance.

The IHR guidelines “gave the director-general of the WHO encouragement and the ability to go public when a member-country wasn’t following those rules,” Pompeo said, “and that didn’t happen in this case either.”

The Trump administration says issues like those will be part of its evaluation of U.S. participation with the WHO over the 60 to 90 day suspension period, though officials said a review of the agency’s leadership is among the most pressing issues.

“There’s numerous questions in terms of the management of the World Health Organization, how they have been operating, holding member states accountable in their actions,” Barsa said. “The review is going to be all encompassing, in all manners of management and operation questions.”

The WHO has pushed back on the administration’s accusations, sharing on Twitter this week that it declared COVID-19 a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern” on Jan. 30, with less than 100 cases and no deaths outside of China.

As industrialized nations work to bring the virus under control, poorer countries are beginning to see a spike in cases.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday announced a 43 percent increase in cases over the past week, The Associated Press reported, and warned that the virus could kill upward of 300,000 people and push 30 million into poverty.

Ben Weingrod, director of government relations for CARE, a global nonprofit working to eliminate poverty and hunger, said the coronavirus threat to African nations is almost beyond comprehension.

“It’s hard to almost say where the need is greatest because it is almost a different reality to what we’re seeing in the developed world,” he said, adding that the WHO should be empowered despite the political clashes.

“It is concerning to see politicization of bodies like WHO and others right now, and my hope is that people will continue to realize that there truly does need to be a coordinated global response,” he said.

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Sarah Sanders trades barbs with Ocasio-Cortez over returning to work

BY J. EDWARD MORENO - 04/23/20 

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez clashed with former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders who accused the New York congresswoman of telling Americans to “boycott work.”

“As usual she’s wrong. The goal should be for Americans to SAFELY return to work because unlike AOC and members of Congress, most of us actually have to show up at work to get paid and support our families!” Sanders tweeted.

.@AOC says Americans should boycott work. As usual she’s wrong. The goal should be for Americans to SAFELY return to work because unlike AOC and members of Congress, most of us actually have to show up at work to get paid and support our families! #ProtectLivesProtectLivelihoods— Sarah Huckabee Sanders (@SarahHuckabee) April 23, 2020

The tweet was referring to a Wednesday interview with VICE in which Ocasio-Cortez said essential workers should protest pre-existing economic insecurity and inequities even after restrictions are lifted.

Ocasio-Cortez responded to Sanders's tweet by pointing out that while she was press secretary, the White House went months without holding press conferences, which were nearly daily occurrences in past administrations. The White House only began holding regular press briefings as the coronavirus pandemic began to take hold of the country.

“Look who’s talking about showing up for work! The woman didn’t hold a press conference for months while holding a job as press sec,” she tweeted.
If you’re so supportive of this admin’s plan, why don’t you go out and try delivering groceries for a living w/o health insurance or mass testing?— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 23, 2020

In the VICE interview, the congresswoman noted that the coronavirus pandemic has shined a light on pre-existing labor inequalities among workers who have now been deemed essential while often lacking sufficient pay or health care.

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SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=AOC

Union leader asks Pelosi, Schumer to spike 'surprise' billing legislation

BY JONATHAN EASLEY - THE HILL - 04/23/20

© Getty Images

A powerful labor union sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday announcing their opposition to bipartisan legislation to ban “surprise” medical bills patients can receive from hospitals and insurers when their services aren’t covered by insurance.

The International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), which represents more than 400,000 mechanics and machine operators nationwide, said it supports the effort to do away with surprise billing, but that the bipartisan legislation gaining traction in Congress would “impose devastating cuts to frontline medical providers and tilt the playing field in favor of insurers.”

“The proposals would give insurance companies outsized power to set artificially low reimbursement rates, reducing revenue that physicians and clinicians across the country depend on to keep the doors open,” union president James Callahan wrote to the Democratic leaders. “This policy would likely lead to physician shortages and even facility closures in many vulnerable rural and underserved communities, just as these critical providers are desperately needed.”

A bipartisan deal reached last year by the leaders of the House Energy and Commerce and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) committees would ban providers from sending the surprise bills, and would instead require insurers to foot the payments, with the costs benchmarked to the average price of the service.
Conservative groups have been raising alarms about the HELP legislation for months, saying it would implement “price controls” or “rate-setting” that gives the government too much domain over the private sector and would pave the way for a single-payer system.

Insurers support the legislation, which is backed by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), the top Republican on the committee, Senate HELP Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the ranking member on the HELP panel.

The HELP bill is one of the few bipartisan pieces of legislation with a shot at getting to President Trump’s desk in an election year. Alexander and Walden are retiring at the end of the year, adding to the pressure they’re under to get the legislation passed.

Lawmakers tried to get the bill included in the 2019 end-of-year spending package, and then again into one of the coronavirus stimulus bills, without success.

The IUOE said it would support creating independent boards to mediate billing disputes, pointing to a model used in New York, that the union said has saved consumers $400 million dollars and reduced out-of-network billing by 34 percent since being implemented in 2015.

In the letter, the union bashed the insurers for supporting the HELP bill.

“This month, one major insurance company, United Health, beat its quarterly profit expectations as its stock price soared and its corporate executives continued to thrive,” Callahan wrote. “Meanwhile, hospitals and medical practices have been forced to cut hours, furlough healthcare workers, and, in some cases, close due to financial strain. There are better solutions to fix surprise billing that do not put the nation’s healthcare safety net or patients’ access to care at risk.”

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MARKET BASED MONOPOLY CAPITALISM IS A DISASTER 
Coronavirus prompts a destruction of US jobs without parallel

The increase in US unemployment caused by the pandemic appears to be even greater than in other comparable economies.


Ian King Business presenter Thursday 23 April 2020 SKYNEWS UK

Image:New York is one of the worst hit parts of the country

Day by day, pieces of numerical evidence and data are emerging that spell out the extent to which the global economy is being crushed by the coronavirus lockdown.

Today brought several particularly compelling examples of the pandemic's impact.

The US Labor Department revealed that, during the seven days to last Saturday, a further 4.427 million Americans registered as jobless.

That brings the total number during the last five weeks to a scarcely-believable 26.5 million - about one million more than the entire population of Australia.

Expressed as a proportion of the total US labour force, it means that one in six Americans of working age and still fit for work have filed claims for unemployment benefits during the last month

Or, put an alternative way, it means that the equivalent of all of the US jobs created since the end of the global financial crisis in 2009 - the longest period of job creation in American history - have been wiped out.

I

 Jobless figures are a worry for Donald Trump ahead of November's election

The figures also highlighted the truly shocking rates of unemployment in some individual US states.

In Michigan, whose biggest city, Detroit, is traditionally the heart of US car-making, the jobless rate now stands at 17.4%.

In Rhode Island, another traditional manufacturing base but also home to healthcare giant CVS, the unemployment rate is now 15%.

In Nevada, home to America's most famous casinos, the jobless rate is now 13.7%.

And in Georgia, where household names such as Coca-Cola, Honeywell and UPS have their global headquarters, the unemployment rate is now 13.6%.

Over the five weeks, in absolute terms, the most jobs have been lost in California, Pennsylvania and New York.

Expressed in terms of the proportion of the local labour force, Pennsylvania and Georgia have been worst hit.


US workers feel the impact of COVID -19

The destruction of American jobs during the last month is without parallel.

To put it in context, during the financial crisis from 2007 to 2009, around nine million Americans were made unemployed.

And the numbers may be even worse than suggested by these figures.

The extent to which increases in joblessness are being recorded depends on the efficiency with which individual states are able to process jobless claims.

For example, a big increase in the jobless rate in Washington State has been put down to a systems upgrade that allowed claims to be dealt with more quickly.

What is particularly worrying - and which will no doubt concern President Trump as he prepares for this November's elections - is that the increase in US joblessness appears to be even greater than in some comparable economies.

Crash in business activity 'vastly' worse than financial crisis

As James McCann, senior global economist at fund manager Aberdeen Standard Investments, put it: "This is another terrible week for layoffs.

"One of the concerns is that the government support doesn't seem to be stemming the tide here.

"The scale of joblessness in the US is clearly larger than other economies.

"This is partly due to the flexibility of the labour market, but also indicative of the problems the US has had ensuring that firms hold on to their workers in the way other countries have through wage subsidies."

An increase in joblessness is perhaps the most obvious way of illustrating the extent to which an economy is slowing down and certainly in terms of spelling out the human suffering that an economic downturn can cause.

Another way of measuring a downturn - and, to economists, just as important - comes in the form of the Purchasing Managers Index survey data.

These are a monthly snapshot of activity in three specific sectors of the economy: services, manufacturing and construction.

IHS Markit, the financial data providers, compile the numbers by sending out questionnaires to thousands of company managers each month asking them questions about what they are seeing in parts of their business, such as new orders, hiring levels, prices and so on.

These responses are then boiled down to one number.

Anything above 50 represents growth and anything below 50 represents contraction - and the numbers are usually a very accurate guide to how the official GDP figures, which are published later, are going to look.

Today IHS Markit published the "flash" PMIs for April, which are compiled from the first 85% of responses, for a number of economies.

These, too, were truly dreadful.

The "flash" composite number - which combines both services and manufacturing - for the US came in at 27.4.

That was down from 40.9 in March.

The figures in Europe, meanwhile, were even worse.

The composite number for the Eurozone was 13.5, again the lowest on record, down from 29.7 in March.

Within that, some of the figures were worse still, with the composite PMI figure for France - which has seen the fourth-highest total of coronavirus deaths by country - coming in at just 11.2.

In the UK, meanwhile, the figure came in at 12.9 - down from 36 for the whole of March.


It's going to be bad. But just how bad?

Again, this is a figure without parallel, consistent with - according to IHS Markit - a quarterly contraction in GDP of 7%.

The overall health of the economy may actually be even worse than implied by the PMI figures because, as IHS Markit pointed out, the PMI survey excludes the vast majority of the self-employed and parts of the heavily-hit retail sector.

Cathal Kennedy, European economist at RBC Capital Markets, said: "Even given the record falls in the PMI survey over the past two months, the surveys are still not picking up the true extent of the collapse in activity that is occurring at present.

"The problem with the PMIs in a situation like the one we are currently experiencing is that they only report the balance of firms saying whether activity is higher or lower.

"What they don't tell us is by how much activity has increased or decreased.

"And in this current episode, a large number of firms will be experiencing a total halt in activity, which the PMIs can't account for and is why the fall in Q2 GDP will be much larger than they are pointing to."

There are not too many crumbs of comfort that can be taken from the latest figures but one, perhaps, is that the UK manufacturing sector appears to be holding up comparatively well compared with the services sector.

That may reflect that, with pubs, bars, hotels and restaurants all closed, activity in many parts of the services sector has completely frozen while in some parts of manufacturing, notably for healthcare and medical equipment, production has been stepped up in some cases.

Another is that, according to Chris Williamson of IHS Markit, business optimism about the year ahead has actually picked up from the all-time low in March.

In the US, meanwhile, although the number of new claims reported today is monstrous, it represents a slowdown from the 5.2 million claims seen the previous week, which was itself down on the week before.

It suggests that the rate at which American jobs are being destroyed has at least peaked.

The bigger question - and this depends strongly on when the lockdown ends - is when those jobs can be replaced.

---30---

About 20% of people in recent survey said they wouldn't take COVID-19 vaccine

Research being done by University of Regina psychology professor

Kendall Latimer · CBC News · Posted: Apr 22, 2020

About 20 per cent of people who took a recent survey said they likely wouldn't take a COVID-19 vaccine if one became available. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters)
Researchers are racing to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, but new data suggests that some people wouldn't get vaccinated even if that option became available.

Gordon Asmundson, a psychology professor at the University of Regina, is studying how psychological factors affect COVID-19's spread.

The study involves three waves of surveying and is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) as part of their COVID-19 Rapid Response Initiative.

Asmundson received $400,000 in funding for his research project COVID-19: The Role of Psychological Factors in the Spreading of Disease, Discrimination, and Distress, undertaken in collaboration with Steven Taylor from the University of British Columbia.

"About 20 per cent of individuals indicated [in the first wave of surveying] that should a vaccine become available, they won't be likely to take it," Asmundson said. "That's concerning given all of the push and efforts to find that vaccine."

The sample size for the first wave was just shy of 7,000 people in Canada and the United States. The data was collected through an internet self-report survey done by data-gathering company Qualtrics between March 21 and April 1.

"If one in five people are not going to take it, that's going to have a significant impact on the effectiveness of [stopping] the virus, of mitigating spread."

Dr. Gordon Asmundson is a professor at the University of Regina, a mental health scientist and a registered clinical psychologist. He studies the psychological factors of epidemics and pandemics. (University of Regina Photography)

Last year, WHO named "vaccine hesitancy" — people unsure about the safety or efficacy of vaccines — a Top 10 threat to global health.
Asmundson said data on vaccine hesitancy will be published within the next month, following the second wave of collection.

Saskatchewan's chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab was not available for an interview, according to the Ministry of Health. He has previously said restrictions like physical distancing will be in place until a vaccine, a treatment or significant immunity is in place.

Nearly half of Canadians are concerned about vaccine safety. Here's why.

How a lab in Sask. that focuses on animals became Canada's $23M hope for a COVID-19 vaccine

Other factors assessed

Asmundson said they are conducting two more waves of surveying so they can measure potential changes in attitude. This will offer insight into how people are emotionally responding to COVID-19, which is "not a one-size fits all stressor."

For example, some questions look at dreaming and sleep patterns.

"Those who are most anxious are coping by sleeping more but they're also reporting more trouble sleeping," Asmundson said based on the first survey results.

People reported more intrusive thoughts while awake and more bad dreams featuring bad outcomes while asleep. 

Maintaining mental health and mindfulness during the COVID-19 pandemic

Asmundson said it's no surprise the virus is lurking in people's dreams because of the "constant barrage of media attention," changes to daily life and a rising global death toll. Intense emotions like fear often fuel dream content, he added, as the brain uses dreams to process information.

"This is having a huge toll on people," he said. "It's really important for people to stop and check how they're doing in terms of their mental health."

He said the data collection has also shown that there is a group of people who appear extraordinarily overwhelmed by the virus. In contrast, there is another group of people who aren't particularly concerned by it and might not adhere to public health advice, which could affect how the virus spreads.

The end goal of the research is to develop a "rapid assessment system that can be used to assess, for any pandemic or major epidemic, infection-related excessive anxiety and xenophobia, and risk factors for these problems."