8 Republicans and 8 Democrats co-sponsored Congresswoman’s bill to make more medical supplies in U.S. and improve transparency around the stockpile
WASHINGTON, DC –– Late last week, the House of Representatives passed a bill led by Rep. Elissa Slotkin (MI-08) to overhaul the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS). The SNS is the federal supply of emergency medical equipment like masks, gowns, and gloves, all of which were in short supply in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic as case numbers soared.
Slotkin's bill, which received almost 400 votes in the House, would create more transparency around the SNS so that states know how much equipment they're entitled to; boost manufacturing of PPE in the United States; and provide more federal resources to states to help them manage their own stockpiles.
What they're saying:
WLNS:House passes Slotkin-backed bill to overhaul national PPE supplies stockpile
- The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation introduced by Rep. Elissa Slotkin (MI-08), Rep. David McKinley (R-WV,) Rep. Kim Schrier (D-WA) and Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) that aims to overhaul and improve the United States' stockpile of emergency supplies (SNS), specifically personal protective equipment (PPE).
- The legislation, if passed into law would: Improve maintenance and transparency of stockpiled supplies, boost manufacturing of necessary supplies such as personal protective equipment, provide federal resources to states to expand their own stockpile, [and] improve transparency by requiring a report to Congress on all requests for stockpile supplies during the pandemic.
Fox 2 Detroit:US Rep. Slotkin announces a Made in America Medical Supply Chain Initiative
- Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin's three-bill package would prevent the struggles to support front-line health care providers in future public health emergencies - like what happened in early 2019 for the pandemic - ever again.
- "So this supply chain bill and Strategic National Stockpile bill came directly from the searing experience we all had in Michigan when COVID really began, and we all remember those really horrible stories of nurses and doctors just begging for masks and gowns and gloves, people going out and wearing construction equipment and scuba equipment and sharing masks on a COVID ward"
- And when we opened the Strategic National Stockpile -- this big reserve of exactly that kind of equipment, that kind of PPE -- Michigan was expecting a much bigger portion than what we got. And what we did get was often expired and in some cases moldy. So this bill was born of that experience.
- "We've been working on this bill since right when COVID hit. One, it makes it transparent, what's in the strategic stockpile, that states like Michigan know ahead of time, what we would be getting if we had an emergency. It allows the stockpile to keep those supplies fresh and sell off supplies that are about to be expired."
- "Remember, we got our supplies in Michigan, and there were moldy supplies in there and expired equipment. And then the biggest thing I'm excited about is that it creates a pilot program to make that kind of stuff in the United States -- literally pay American manufacturers to make that PPE so we're not dependent on Chinese sources the way we were."
Original source can be found here.
