Congress to Fight Pandemic with Big Investments in Vaccines, Treatments, and Medicaid Coverage

While South Dakota prepares to sock coronavirus relief dollars away in the bank to fund future parochial non-pandemic budget whims, the Biden Administration and the half of Congress that wants to get things done are proposing big investments in public health, health insurance, and other public goods to help our nation beat coronavirus. The U.S. House Committee on Commerce and Energy begins markup today on legislative recommendations that include the following really good spending proposals:

Public Health:

1. $7.5 billion to help the CDC distribute and administer covid-19 vaccines.
2. $1 billion to support CDC education programs to get people to get their shots (although maybe we don’t need to spend that much on advertising, since the simple improvement of putting a good example in the White House already coincides with a rising rate of willingness to get vaccinated).
3. $5.2 billion through the Department of Health and Human Services to support research, development, manufacturing, and purchase of vaccines and treatments to fight coronavirus and variant infections.
4. $46 billion through HHS to test, trace, and mitigate the spread of coronavirus.
5. $1.75 billion to expand CDC’s ability to sequence genomes, track mutations, and study the spread of coronavirus.
6. $7.6 billion to hire more public health workers and provide more tech and personal protective equipment to support public health workers.
7. $7.6 billion to help Community Health Centers test, trace, treat, and tamp down coronavirus.
8. $200 million to help nurses pay down their student loans.
9. $331 million to support more residency sites to train more doctors.
10. $1.8 billion to buy more tests, PPE, and vaccines for folks living and working in congregate settings.
11. $6.094 billion to boost tribal health programs to help protect our Native populations, which saw a mortality rate from coronavirus 1.8 times higher than white folks did during the first half of 2020.

Medicaid and CHIP:

1. Guarantee Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program covers 100% of the cost of covid-19 vaccines and treatment.
2. Offer states that haven’t expanded Medicaid an increase of the federal share of the cost of expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act from 90% to 95% for the first two years of expansion, potentially insuring 2.2 million people who’ve been left uninsured by pigheaded anti-Obamacare states like South Dakota.
3. Extend Medicaid and CHIP eligibility for post-partum women (we love babies!) and Medicaid eligibility for individuals getting out of prison.
4. Eliminate the cap on Medicaid drug rebates.
5. Increase the federal share of Medicaid funding for home- and community-based services for one year.
6. Create nursing home strike teams to help facilities manage covid-19 outbreaks.

Other Investments:

1. $4.5 billion to support the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (one of the good programs the previous administration wanted to kill).
2. $500 million to help low-income Americans and folks financially hit by the pandemic pay their water and sewer bills (because it’s hard to stay healthy if your water’s been shut off).
3. $7.6 billion to help schools and libraries provide home Internet service to students and teachers.

The South Dakota Legislature and Governor Kristi Noem have proposed no investments comparable to these specific, targeted measures to promote public health and pandemic prevention. The only analogous South Dakota proposal, a push for increased broadband infrastructure, is just a continuation of previous pro-business policy from the Noem Administration, not a focused pandemic response.

Congress and the Biden Administration are investing serious money in fighting the coronavirus pandemic. South Dakota’s government is just pocketing the cash already disbursed and riding along for free.