\n \n \n “. concat(self. i18n. t(‘search. voice. recognition_retry’), “\n
In July, Biden’s leadership extended the COVID-19 public health emergency into October and appears poised to make it bigger for at least three months.
At this point, almost all Americans have some form of immunity. Hospitalization rates have been the highest for months (though case rates remain the highest in much of the country).
A vote this spring by the Pew Research Center showed the pandemic ranks 12th among the 12 most sensitive considerations of concern to Americans.
Was it mandatory to prolong the fitness emergency this summer? We think not. In addition, keeping the emergency in position now, when we no longer want it, can undermine public acceptance of long-term fitness emergency declarations when they are needed.
Here are some of the policies through the Public Health Emergency:
►Administration may extend benefits for others enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid.
►All states and Washington, D. C. may offer expanded telehealth without prior approval from the federal government.
►Hospitals get a 20% increase in Medicare payment rate per patient diagnosed with COVID.
This bill bolus may explain why all the giant urban hospital systems we audited and the vast majority of small systems were still evaluating all patients. The tests themselves can also generate money for hospitals.
Not surprisingly, the American Hospital Association, a strong lobbying presence in Washington whose strength has been amplified during the pandemic, sent a letter in March to the head of the Department of Health and Human Services requesting the extension of the public fitness emergency.
Some of those expanded benefits are necessarily bad. More available, telefitness can help many vulnerable and remote Americans. And without the public fitness emergency, millions of other people could be kicked out of Medicaid due to stricter eligibility criteria.
But if the administration needs to maintain those benefits, it will have to stick to broad democratic and legislative processes to do so, rather than the urgency of circumventing the need for congressional approval. For example, some Republican lawmakers protested when COVID-19’s state of emergency provided President Joe Biden with the basis for debt relief from unpaid school loans through the post-September 11 Heroes Act.
Whether the ordinance is technically legal or not, public fitness emergencies should be reserved to combat genuine threats and not used as a backdoor for fitness (or economic) care reform.
There are disadvantages to keeping a physical emergency order in place for years:
►Continuing to funnel billions of dollars just to fight COVID-19 means that other potential fitness-related emergencies may be overlooked. Cases of monkeypox are a significant challenge and the polio virus was recently detected in New York City wastewater. as soon as possible to build up vaccine stockpiles, conduct studies and testing, and raise awareness among affected communities.
►Paying the 20% premium to hospitals for treating COVID-19 patients is meant to offset the costs of protocols that restrict the spread of the disease, but screening everyone also means that hospitals are full of other people who are there for similar non-COVID cases. Reasons cannot yet be sent back to a rehabilitation or professional nursing facility because of their test. positive. The focus needs to be on protecting other people in hospitals who are really vulnerable to the severe end effects of COVID.
Keeping the country in a state of emergency can encourage state and local governments to hold on to the unnecessary but destructive restrictions of COVID-19. Despite relaxed recommendations for schools from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, recently moved because its COVID plan, designed last year, contemplates closure if 3% of schoolchildren test positive.
Lifting the federal fitness emergency will lose the hospital’s budget and capacity, discourage lawmakers from clinging to destructive pandemic policies, and return the country to the normalcy it so desperately needs.
Margery Smelkinson, Ph. D. , is an infectious disease specialist who has focused on influenza and COVID-19 disease. Leslie Bienen, DVM, is a veterinarian and professor of public health at OHSU State University-Portland School of Public Health.
This article was originally published in USA TODAY: The Extension of the COVID Public Fitness Emergency Is Endangering Long-Term Pandemics