House GOP approves bill to end the COVID-19 public health emergency immediately
Abigail Adcox
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House Republicans passed legislation to end the COVID-19 public health emergency that was first put in place at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 immediately.
The bill won’t pass the Democratic Senate, but it does show GOP disapproval of President Joe Biden’s handling of the pandemic. Biden announced on Monday that he plans to end the COVID-19 emergency on May 11.
The Pandemic is Over Act was approved in a 220-210 vote early Tuesday evening and would terminate the public health declaration, immediately ending a practice that allowed the federal government to develop COVID-19 vaccines, testing, and treatments and offer them for free during the pandemic.
It would also bring a swift end to continuous enrollment for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which has kept millions of people enrolled in the public health insurance programs that may have exceeded the income levels to qualify without a temporary or permanent lapse in coverage.
BIDEN TO END COVID-19 EMERGENCIES ON MAY 11
“Americans elected a House majority that would put a stop to Joe Biden’s failing agenda, including the Biden administration’s authoritarian COVID-19 policies. House Republicans are moving the federal government away from its perpetual COVID state and will keep working to bring common sense back to Congress,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) told the Washington Examiner.
Biden said Tuesday night that bringing an immediate end to the COVID-19 emergency would “create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the healthcare system” without time to transition the COVID-19 response to the commercial market. The White House has said Biden would veto the measures if they come to his desk.
“If the PHE were suddenly terminated, it would sow confusion and chaos into this critical wind-down. Due to this uncertainty, tens of millions of Americans could be at risk of abruptly losing their health insurance, and states could be at risk of losing billions of dollars in funding,” the White House said in a statement Monday night. “Additionally, hospitals and nursing homes that have relied on flexibilities enabled by the emergency declarations will be plunged into chaos without adequate time to retrain staff and establish new billing processes, likely leading to disruptions in care and payment delays, and many facilities around the country will experience revenue losses. ”
Biden’s announcement to end both the COVID-19 national emergency and the public health emergency in May came on the eve of the House vote. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) credited the GOP’s legislation on Wednesday for putting pressure on Biden to end the emergency.
Lawmakers reached a deal in the omnibus year-end spending bill to allow states to begin removing ineligible people from Medicaid, establishing a process to unwind the continuous enrollment requirement regardless of whether the COVID-19 public health emergency is still in place.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The Congressional Office Budget said earlier this month that ending the COVID-19 public health emergency before July 2023 would reduce federal costs by at least $2 billion, though it noted there was “considerable uncertainty” surrounding what agencies would be affected by the implementation of the bill.