Industry Fights Back

The nursing home industry wants Republicans to bail them out. The industry contributes millions to Republican political campaigns.  The lobbyists are not happy with the Republican $1 trillion coronavirus bill, entitled the HEAL Act. The Republican version contains measures that help nursing home owners and providers but nothing for healthcare workers.

The measures include liability immunity for nursing home owners and abusers. Republicans also included billions for facilities’ PPE, testing, and other supplies. The legislation does not help them enough in their opinion. The industry wants more.  More money without accountability or transparency. Therefore, the industry is fighting back.

Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO of LeadingAge, said the bill “treats older lives as expendable. The resources provided are woefully insufficient. The package offers only a fraction of the $100 billion that will be needed to help aging services providers protect older adults and offers no specific funds for aging services providers. It does nothing to address the needs of more 750,000 older adults in HUD federally-subsidized and privately-owned housing programs.”

Meanwhile, Trump can not understand the difference between death rates and positive COVID cases. Trump said in an interview with “Axios on HBO” that he thinks the coronavirus is well-controlled in the U.S., despite significant surges in new infections with more than 160,000 American deaths.

In an interview with Jonathan Swan of Axios, Trump could not understand the reality of the rising numbers of dead in America. He continues to insist that we have high infection numbers only because we are testing. Swan patiently explained that our death rate as a proportion of our population is “really bad.”

Trump then incorrectly swore it is “lower than the [rest of the] world.” He criticized Swan “You’re not reporting it correctly.”

Trump is clearly wrong as the graphs below show.