Patients are getting bills as health providers wait on Trump for information.
The White House pledged over two weeks ago to cover coronavirus treatment for uninsured Americans — but the administration still doesn’t have a plan for how to do it.
Trump officials are still grappling with key questions about how exactly to implement the treatment fund, including how to determine if a patient qualifies for the new federal dollars, an administration source said. Adding to the challenge, they’re still figuring out how to divvy up funding that hospitals and physicians say is desperately needed.
Trump’s decision to cover the uninsured through a new hospital bailout fund came days after he ruled out reopening Obamacare’s marketplaces during the pandemic. That refusal, which surprised some of his own health officials, sparked a scramble to reassure tens of millions of uninsured Americans they wouldn’t have to fear financial devastation if they got sick with the disease.
The administration also still hasn’t explained how the federal government will pay out a separate funding pot covering diagnostic testing for uninsured Americans. That funding was approved a month ago by Congress, about two weeks before the administration also promised to cover treatment for the uninsured.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/20/coronavirus-treatment-uninsured-195218