President-Elect Joe Biden released an ambitious $1.9 trillion economic relief plan yesterday, entitled the “American Rescue Plan.” Congressional Republicans have already started to express opposition to the plan with some Democrats criticizing the plan for not providing more relief for hard-hit Americans. Given the slim margins in both houses, the fate of the package remains…
Read More »Today, the incoming Biden-Harris Administration announced its plans for ramping up COVID-19 vaccine production and administration, as well as key personnel joining the Administration’s COVID-19 Response Team. Below, we detail these announcements: COVID-19 Vaccination Plan In its announcement, the Biden-Harris Administration acknowledged the ongoing challenges with the COVID-19 pandemic, including the limited vaccine supply and…
Read More »Today, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a study in its Weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report (MMWR) indicating the more highly transmissible variant of the COVID-19 virus detected in the United Kingdom, B.1.1.7, has the potential to increase the U.S. pandemic trajectory in the coming months. Based on the latest modeling,…
Read More »On Thursday, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar extended the nationwide public health emergency due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The initial public health emergency declaration was made on January 27, 2020, and has been previously renewed three times. The full declaration is available here.
Read More »The incoming Biden Administration has announced that it plans to release nearly all available COVID-19 vaccine doses “to ensure the Americans who need it most get it as soon as possible” upon the administration’s inauguration on January 20. Currently, the Trump Administration has been holding back approximately half of its vaccine supply to ensure those…
Read More »This week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced two upcoming actions to provide more than $22 billion in funding to states, localities, and territories to support the continued response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The funding was made available through the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act that was passed…
Read More »Recently, the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) received approval from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for a one-year extension of California’s Section 1115 Medi-Cal 2020 demonstration waiver. Recall, DHCS requested an extension of the waiver in mid-2020 amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, included in the approved extension is a…
Read More »As reported last week, Congress passed a $2.3 trillion spending and COVID-19 relief measure and on Monday, President Trump signed the measure into law. For more details about the measure, please see the links below: CHEAC Article NACo Analysis
Read More »On Monday after months of stalled negotiations, Congress passed a sweeping $2.3 trillion spending measure containing $1.4 trillion in governmental appropriations for fiscal year 2021, as well as $900 billion in additional COVID-19 relief. Over the weekend, Congressional leaders broke the stalemate, ultimately leading to the spending bill’s passage in both chambers of Congress on…
Read More »Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Defense (DOD) announced the federal government will purchase an additional 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer. Under the agreement, Pfizer will manufacture and deliver up to 100 million doses of its SARS-CoV-2 vaccine to government designated locations. Pfizer must…
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