Georgia hospitals, nursing homes push for more federal COVID-19 relief
maintaining care and curbing infections due to tight finances, difficulty procuring test kits and health disparities in minority communities.
They laid out challenges with retaining hospital and nursing staff, receiving enough sanitization materials and keeping seniors in longterm care facilities from becoming depressed due to prolonged isolation as the virus continues battering Georgia.
More federal funds for health-care providers in a second round of coronavirus relief will be critical to fend off a large increase in positive cases and intensive-care hospitalizations over the past month, several hospital executives said Monday, July 27.
“Anything we can get is important because the financial burden, especially in hot spots, has been really tremendous on healthcare centers and hospitals,” said Dr. Jonathan Lewin, president and CEO of Emory Healthcare in Atlanta.
Monday’s (July 27) talk was hosted by Loeffler, R-Ga., and Seema Verma, administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Loeffler, who has brought legislation to broaden insurance coverage for telemedicine, aims to focus on federal aid for schools, health-care providers and businesses as Congress hashes out another funding package.
So far, Loeffler has opposed calls to extend $600 weekly federal unemployment benefits in effect since April that are set to expire at month’s end (July), arguing many businesses have struggled to bring employees back to work amid unemployment benefits that may be higher than their regular paychecks.
“What we have to look at is making sure the relief goes to those most impacted,” Loeffler said. “We’re looking at restaurants going bankrupt, going out of business. We have to know that there are areas that have been more impacted than others and making sure we’re addressing that particular issue.”