New York hospitals and healthcare providers will receive some federal funding to help combat COVID-19, Senator Chuck Schumer announced on April 22.
New York will receive $4.3 billion of a new $10 billion fund that will be allocated for coronavirus “hot spots” like those across the New York City area and Long Island, said Schumer, who stated the New York will get the lion’s share of these funds. Schumer said he pushed the Trump administration to quickly allocate and spend the health money, which was secured as part of the CARES Act.
Schumer also added that New York will get billions more in funding in the months ahead.
“Our hospitals and providers have been the vanguard in the fight against the coronavirus,” Schumer said. “And these critical dollars will help keep the fight against the virus going strong. New York and its hospitals have been amongst the hardest hit in the nation, and with this news today, the frontline fight being waged by our health care system and its incredible workforce will continue. These are the hot spot dollars our hospitals and providers need, and the dollars they so very much deserve to keep saving lives.”
The CARES Act includes $100 billion in additional funding to provide grants to hospitals, public entities, not-for-profit entities, Medicare and Medicaid-enrolled suppliers, and institutional providers. The grants cover un-reimbursed health care-related expenses or lost revenues attributable to the public health emergency resulting from the coronavirus. The bill also includes an additional $75 billion for this fund.
“Across the state of New York, hospitals and health systems report that they are losing hundreds of millions of dollars per month because of cancelled elective procedures, increased staffing and overtime costs, expanded bed capacity, and increased spending on supplies and equipment to meet the surge in COVID-19 patients,” said Schumer. “The strain on hospitals and health systems is felt even more acutely in regions like the New York metropolitan area where the bulk of COVID-19 patients are being treated at this time. These costs obviously do not exist evenly across the country, and it is therefore crucial that subsequent rounds of funding provide an adjustment for hot spots like New York.”
This story was originally published in AMNY.com. To sign up for the Gay City News email newsletter, visit gaycitynews.com/newsletter.
