This Week’s Federal Coronavirus Law – Does it Really CARE About Moms?
Joy Burkhard, MBA
By Joy Burkhard, MBA
We know it’s been a heavy week for even the toughest moms. Some of you still have the energy to follow federal policy and have asked how the most recent federal COVID law (the third bill so far addressing Coronavirus and a whopping 1000 pages) titled the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act (S. 3548) impacts mothers and birth.
But first, to get your bearings, here is a recap of the other two COVID laws:
The first bill was the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, providing $8.3 billion to spur coronavirus vaccine research and development.
The second bill provided $104 billion largely focused on paid sick leave, nutrition support, and unemployment benefits. Read more about that bill – Families First Coronavirus Response Act in another recent Mom Congress blog post.
So what about the CARES Act, and moms/birth? The truth is, this law wasn’t intended to address specialized populations nor birth, but rather to address the COVID crisis generally. It provides:
Emergency financial assistance to several industries and small business, including assistance to the hospital industry
$1,200 to Americans making $75,000 or less a year ($150,000 in the case of joint returns and $112,500 for a head of household) and $500 for each child
Expanded unemployment insurance including providing people with an additional $600 per week on top of the unemployment amount determined by each state
Expanded telehealth services for those receiving care through state Medicaid and Medicare programs
What I personally found troubling this week is the glaring gap in a federal regulatory authority providing guidance to hospitals on how to respond to COVID and create fair, consistent policy for providers and birthing mothers.
In case you didn’t yet know,
the U.S. doesn’t have any one agency that regulates hospitals.
Unlike the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) who could immediately issue guidance to the airlines after the 9-11 crisis, hospitals have been left to frantically piece together their own policies and protocol.
These two articles illustrate how several New York hospitals in the COVID epicenter set policy on their own discontinuing birth partners, until the state licensing agency stepped up and set a uniform policy.
Meanwhile, other conversations this week pointed out gaps in promoting non-hospital births as hospital bed shortages are expected to rise. Some moms and midwifery associations have begun to raise these issues to state medical boards and health insurance commissioners. If this concerns you, you can call your board and insurance commissioner too.