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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the time for a series of investigations into Nomi Health and its dealings with Republican governors to secure lucrative COVID-19 testing contracts. Read the first story here.
Under intense pressure to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, heads of state across the country accelerated solutions and effects in early 2020 to slow the spread of the coronavirus and repair suffering economies.
And lasting relationships to pave the way to those goals in a handful of Republican-led states.
Thanks, at least in part, to their ties to high-ranking Utah politicians, 4 corporations in Salt Lake City’s big tech network won their first no-bid contract on March 31, 2020.
This agreement is just the beginning. These corporations would leverage their relationships within a year to signal deals that would bring them at least $219 million in five GOP-led states. Two of the corporations would give more than a million dollars to Republican campaigns after securing those deals.
That’s how USA TODAY received the story from Nomi Health.
Both contracts and political donations have raised questions from critics and observers about favoritism and paid campaign contributions.
Nomi Health pioneered securing those contracts, a startup with no public fitness experience that would oversee COVID-19 testing and supply private protective equipment (PPE) in Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and Utah.
Nomi would rent Domo and Qualtrics, two software corporations whose executives served on the board of Silicon Slopes, a nonprofit that promotes tech corporations. Several of those board members had close ties to Utah’s political leaders.
Both companies would provide electronic dashboards and verification surveys. The verifications would come from Co-Diagnostics, a molecular verification company that “had no major customers” in 2019, according to the company’s annual report. The small company, which has a few dozen employees, used its relationship with an influential former mayor of a Salt Lake City suburb and that of U. S. Senator Mitt Romney to force the U. S. Food and Drug Administration to force the U. S. Food and Drug Administration to force the U. S. Food and Drug Administration to force the U. S. Food and Drug Administration to force the U. S. Food and Drug Administration to force the U. S. Food and Drug Administration to force the U. S. Food and Drug Administration to force the U. S. Food and Drug Administration to force the U. S. Food and Drug Administration to force the U. S. Food and Drug Administration to force the UThe U. S. department of the U. S. to get emergency approval for your check.
A USA TODAY survey found in more than 30,000 documents and dozens of interviews that a network of connected, effective business relationships and political leaders in five states tipped the scales in favor of Nomi Health, its contractors and its supplier. These state Republican leaders have awarded Contracts to Nomi for tens of thousands of COVID-19 and PPE tests despite the company’s inexperience.
Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, Utah’s covid-19 czar who was governor, told USA TODAY that he had never heard of Nomi, but that the company was advised by Silicon Slopes executives and told that Nomi had access to missing COVID-19 testing.
“It’s appealing that other people have forgotten what the first few weeks and months were like. We had a general shutdown,” Cox told USA TODAY in May 2022, referring to the beginning of the pandemic. “The only way to open it was check until we had a vaccine. . . I didn’t care where the checks came from, and I didn’t care if they came from Mars. We would have given a no-bid contract to everyone who passed checks. “
Cox said he got in touch through his opposing numbers in other states that saw Utah succeed through “testing at a higher rate” and “we said those other people were helping us. “
These talks, and recommendations from Cox, Gov. Gary Herbert and others, would temporarily expand Nomi’s to the governors of Iowa, Nebraska and Tennessee.
In Iowa, Nomi also benefited from a connection with actor Ashton Kutcher, who is friends with Qualtrics founder and Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith. Kutcher, according to The Des Moines Register, took Nomi to Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who gave the company a bidding contract on April 15, 2020.
On April 23, about 3 weeks after Nomi landed her first contract in Utah, Vice President Mike Pence congratulated Reynolds and his partnership with Nomi and Domo at a COVID-19 briefing at the White House.
Also in April, Nebraska awarded Nomi a no-bid contract two days before Pence’s announcement. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts at the time said nomi after a verbal exchange with fellow Republicans Reynolds and Herbert, according to The Associated Press.
The momentum continued in Tennessee, where a lobbyist and fundraiser for the Republican Governors Association took Nomi to the governor’s chief of staff, who put the company in touch with that state’s fitness commissioner.
Within a month, from March 31 to May 1, Nomi had signed contract tenders in 4 states, and would then win more state contracts through the classic competitive procurement process.
By the time Florida arrived a year later, taxpayers would pay Nomi about $219 million, records show.
The breakdown: Utah ($78. 5 million), Iowa ($26 million), Nebraska ($62 million), Tennessee ($5. 9 million) and Florida ($46. 5 million).
“When things opened up, we went through a bidding process,” Cox told USA TODAY. “Guess who showed up to bid? Nomi was the only one who made an offer. “
Utah’s 4 businesses, like many businesses during the pandemic, have benefited from limited oversight, as elected officials in every state have signed government contracts without bidding with an emergency motivated by a preference to reopen their suffering economies, records show.
Infectious disease officials in the fitness branch in those states were surprised that they weren’t consulted or presented with the opportunity to lead the testing effort, and Nebraska lawmakers wondered why their highly reputable training hospital had been overlooked in Favor of Nomi.
Nomi officials said that while the price of their contracts with states would possibly make headlines, there is more to the story.
Mark Newman, Nomi’s chief executive, said the company offers a comprehensive service that includes remote areas of the states at an incredible price for taxpayers.
He declined to disclose the personal company’s profits since he got his first COVID-19 testing contract in the spring of 2020, but said his percentage of profit margin “on teenagers,” allowing Nomi to earn millions of dollars.
Newman, who brought Nomi on May 1, 2019, to cut red tape for patients and health care providers, said when COVID-19 hit, the Utah business network came together. “to provide answers and access” to PPE and testing. Array
He said the leaders of Nomi, Domo, Qualtrics and Co-Diagnostics knew others and “touched Utah. “
“Every state found out they were in 2020,” Newman said.
He said there is “no coherent federal reaction around the pandemic” and that governors want to figure out how to get their citizens tested to stay safe.
Newman said governors and their chiefs of staff are communicating and with the launch of Utah’s check program, called TestUtah, other states need his services.
“They called everybody, and we were the last call,” Newman said. “We have been contacted by all the governors of small and large states in the country . . . We have absolutely crushed the value of COVID testing in their markets. “
In the state of Newman, a 2020 emergency procurement report from the Utah state auditor found that prices as managed by Nomi were “unreasonable” at around $235 according to Array.
Nomi argued that the report, which also analyzed work done through Nomi Qualtrics and subcontractors from Domo and other companies, did not take into account Nomi’s entire consistent policy, which includes setting up control centers in all states, hiring nurses and staff, and purchasing checks and lab equipment. Company officials say prices finally approached $42 consistent with the check after two years. The auditor’s workplace declined to answer questions, but their report says checks from other companies charge $125 consistent with the check or less.
Josh Walker, Nomi’s chief operating officer and co-founder, said the company not only provided a “verification mechanism,” but also created a verification operation “that can be scaled up or down and used based on your preference to know to what extent. “they were looking to go”.
He added that Nomi Health has consistently had “initial structure prices” and “the more you use it, the more you scale it, the more unit-consistent prices vary and decrease. “
Still, Utah’s audit expressed fear that the contract would pay a flat fee for initial prices plus a flat fee consistent with the verification site. The contract came with some adjustment clause depending on the number of checks performed.
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The audit also noted that Utah’s governor and lieutenant governor “have a relatively close relationship” with Silicon Slopes and member companies.
“This is scary when contracts are aimed at those companies,” the audit said.
Auditors also said it was conceivable that the governor’s workplace “made the mistake of unrecoverable costs,” switching to contracts with some Silicon Slopes suppliers without reconsidering other opportunities when they changed initial arrangements.
While all the states Nomi served had Republican governors, those heads of state also had close ties to the Republican Governors Association (RGA), a difficult fundraising organization, with some holding leadership positions.
Nomi and Domo, the software’s subcontractor, donated more than a million dollars in total to the crusades related to the RGA or the Republican Party after the deals were awarded, USA TODAY found in the financial reports of the state and federal crusades.
Domo returned calls or emails, but Newman told USA TODAY that contributions to the crusade were paid in part, so the company could continue to “be at the table” and compete for long-term fitness contracts against other companies.
He said Nomi is not exclusive in his money to public officials, noting that other corporations make crusade contributions to politicians. Nomi also made contributions to Democrats, according to the company.
“If we need to have long-term business in those states,” Newman said, “why wouldn’t we also participate in the political procedure and give a contribution to 50 of those states, like all other health care organizations do?”
Walker, Nomi’s lead chief operating officer, at the Republican Governors Association summit table in May 2021, where he sat on a medical panel with governors from New Hampshire, Missouri, Maryland and South Carolina. The occasion attracted 21 governors.
Meanwhile, on July 20, 2022, Newman among several Utah hosts for a fundraiser for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 GOP presidential candidate.
The Florida Governor’s Office, from Feb. 4 to June 17, 2021, paid Nomi at least $46. 5 million for vaccine and COVID-19 work, records show. Nomi donated $100,000 to a DeSantis political committee on July 23, 2021. and four days later, Newman paid $10,000.
Donald Sherman, senior vice president of the political watchdog organization CREW, said contributions to the crusade as a result of no-bid government contracts are not illegal, but “it is patently ethically dubious and undermines public acceptance as true in our institutions. “
In Utah, Cox, who would be governor in November 2020, won at least $290,000 from the RGA and the Republican State Leadership Committee, two political action committees of which Nomi and Domo were the donors.
He said there was no direct link between contributions to the crusade and contracts.
“I made a very small amount of cash from the Republican Governors Association, and I’m going to win (the general election) by a very large margin. Anyone who ties a gift or quid pro quo drinks,” said Cox, who won by a narrow margin. number one of the Republican Party and won the general election without problems.
Governors’ forums in Florida, Iowa, Nebraska and Tennessee said Nomi’s contracts were awarded based on the company’s ability to temporarily provide emergency services and that there is no connection to the crusade’s contributions.
“It was decided whether suppliers could only supply appliances and that supported Florida’s reaction to COVID-19,” said Samantha Bequer, communications director for that state’s emergency control department. “The department does not track political donations or political affiliations from any vendor. . “
In Tennessee, Tony Simon, a lobbyist and fundraiser for the RGA, contacted the RGA’s fitness commissioner with Nomi after exchanging emails with Blake Harris, the governor’s staff leader.
Simon, a Public Affairs spouse at ConnectSouth in Atlanta, told the Tennessee governor’s office in an email not to “panic” about the contract charge. Instead, the number is a “federal government reimbursement opportunity” over the next year, as the government reimbursed states for COVID-19-related expenses.
Seven days later, on May 1, 2020, Tennessee would sign a $26. 5 million contract with Nomi.
A spokeswoman for Nomi stated that Simon “made a presentation” for the company. Newman, Nomi’s executive director, declined to answer repeated questions about Simon, who also answered questions from USA TODAY.
Harris, leader of Tennessee’s governor, resigned in November 2021 to assist in Gov. Bill Lee’s re-election efforts and to help the RGA, according to Lee’s office.
“As for Nomi’s negotiations with the state in early 2020, there are public documents communicating about the brief status verification contract with the company. My role in this regard was limited and negotiations with Nomi followed the needs of the source in a state of emergency, Harris told USA TODAY in a statement.
Lee downplayed the connection to the RGA.
“At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, each and every state in the country was competing for protective devices and private testing,” said Laine Arnold, Lee’s spokeswoman. “All paintings with Nomi comply with Tennessee law. that govern emergency purchases and have no influence on limited relations with the state. “
Five days after Nomi got her contract in Tennessee, then-deputy laboratory director in the state, Kara Levinson, raised her considerations in a six-point email to her bosses.
Levinson, promoted to director in May, wrote that in conversations with other states interested in Nomi, the COVID-19 he provided “appears to be four times less sensitive” than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19Array.
“The use of a less sensitive test has the potential to give false-negative results, which has significant implications for individual patients who may not be in good physical shape and for the public body of workers conducting contract research,” he wrote.
“Also, the optics of a less sensitive/inferior test, especially when the governor said we’re targeting vulnerable populations to test Array. . . it has the prospect of creating a strong political reaction. “
Tennessee then conducted a verification/validation review of Nomi’s test formula and we decided that it was unreliable and that it “did not trust that clinical sample testing on this platform will provide reliable and reproducible results. “
The report also said lab officials doubted “the robustness and staying power of Nomi’s verification formula and its ability to meet the announced verification capability for clinical use. “The director of the state fitness laboratory and his deputy wrote, “We cannot approve the use of the Nomi control formula for the clinical control of COVID-19. “
The state terminated its contract with the company on June 15, 2020 and paid $5. 9 million to Nomi. Nomi said there was a mutual separation and cash was paid for the facilities provided.
Email records from fitness branch officials in Utah, Iowa and Nebraska show that infectious disease and fitness experts have expressed fear about the notification and accuracy of Nomi’s testing process, no other state has terminated its contracts.
USA TODAY contacted 20 other states that had Republican governors at the beginning of the pandemic to find out if they were asked to use COVID-19 testing and tracking services from Nomi and other businesses.
Of the handful of states that record in response, several were contacted through Domo, Qualtrics or both, but none had email records indicating direct contact with Nomi.
One of the emails to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, president of RGA, includes a reference to Pence’s cry to the paintings of Nomi Domo’s subcontractor in Iowa.
“Vice President Mike Pence referred to Domo and the state of Iowa and how our platform has tripled its capacity,” read the email sent through Domo account manager Jason Penrose on April 28, 2020.
Several Qualtrics workers had a virtual assembly with at least one Ducey member on May 8, 2020 to discuss their COVID tracking services. A spokesman for Ducey did not respond to questions about why the state didn’t sign a contract with Qualtrics or other partners. .
Domo also sent similar emails to North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
Su did not meet with Dome on Earth because the state had already implemented a DASHBOARD and a COVID-19 testing system, according to Mike Nowatzki, communications director for the North Dakota governor’s office.
Nowatzki said North Dakota has greater testing capacity than its state lab and developed its own data equipment and dashboards. The state also had a contract with the company for surge and backup testing.
Several Republican governors who paid for Nomi’s large-scale testing overlooked their own state training hospitals.
“Nomi executives, through their own admission, have no knowledge of public fitness practices in this domain and have little understanding of Nebraska’s fitness care delivery formula in general,” 4 Nebraska state senators wrote in a May 11, 2020 letter to Gov. Pete Ricketts. “The people of Nebraski cannot afford to wait for Nomi’s leaders to be informed about the work. “
The 4 Democratic senators, Machaela Cavanaugh, Megan Hunt, Rick Kolowski and Carol Blood, said the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which is “world renowned in infection control and treatment,” is leading the testing effort.
Cavanaugh, in a recent interview with USA TODAY, said Nebraska didn’t get its money’s worth from Nomi.
He said there were problems getting tests for those who were disabled or didn’t have access to the internet, and the state had to hire its own call center and ask the National Guard to help administer the tests.
Cavanaugh is left speechless about why there was such a lack of coordination with established physical care providers and why the state didn’t use its own data sharing for COVID-19 reports instead of relying on Nomi.
She said contributions to Nomi’s crusade after obtaining contracts were “incorrect. “
“It turns out they’re coming out to do business, and it’s a negative reaction when they contribute to the crusade a while after getting a massive contract without a bid,” Cavanaugh said. bidding process, it could have been different, but I still think it’s not appropriate. “
In Utah, state Rep. Suzanne Harrison, a Democrat from the Salt Lake City suburb of Draper and an anesthesiologist, added that Utah also had a “tremendous fitness infrastructure, a nationally ranked medical school and a nonprofit lab” that Nomi overlooked.
“It would have been a smart position to start,” Harrison told USA TODAY. “We missed the opportunity to invest in the party we had in Utah and have conducted a rudimentary bidding procedure to get a smart price for taxpayers and, more importantly, the expertise needed to protect the suitability of the community. “
She said contributions to the crusade after the contracts were awarded to Nomi “speak for themselves. “
States have also overlooked other established corporations like Thermo Fisher Scientific, a Massachusetts-based company with $40 billion in annual profits that, as of mid-March 2020, had one of the first COVID-19 PCR kits on the market.
In Nebraska, Ricketts’ workplace told USA TODAY in June that he tried to buy a thermo Fisher checker, but put him on a waiting list because no device was available, and that was one of the reasons the state opted for Nomi.
Ricketts’ workplace added that Nomi had helped the state more than triple its daily COVID-19 tests to 6,300 tests, and that it could provide much-needed tests when others simply didn’t deliver it.
“Nomi Health used because it is the only company that can provide gigantic amounts of high-precision COVID testing to the citizens of Nebraska,” said Alex Reuss, a spokesman for the governor.
Reuss added that a New York Times investigation found that Nebraska ranked among the top 10 most sensible states for the fewest COVID-19 deaths according to 100,000 residents, which he attributed to the state’s “free and massive COVID testing. “
Reuss also noted that Nebraska, along with Utah, Nomi’s first client, won scores from the National Bureau of Economic Research for its reaction to the pandemic.
This article gave the impression of USA TODAY: Utah corporations donated $1 million to GOP campaigns after getting COVID deals without an offer