Today, May 19th, 2022, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, M.D. (IA-02) joined colleagues on the House Education and Labor Committee in a letter to the Biden Administration urging an end to the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) and a transferal of vaccine purchasing, distribution, and administering of vaccines and therapies to the private market.
“For months, the Administration has stated that we have beaten the pandemic. It’s time they listen to their own words and put an end to the public health emergency,” said Miller-Meeks. “After two years, Americans are ready for a return to normal. The Administration should be actively supporting this by working with the private sector and seriously focusing on the self-made inflation, border, and energy crises.”
Background:
In the letter, the Members write: “We write to express our concerns regarding the Biden administration’s continuation of the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) declaration and to call on the Administration to release its plan to wind down the PHE and begin transitioning the purchasing, distribution, and coverage of COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and tests to the private market. We further call on the Administration to work with employers, health care plans, and states to help Medicaid enrollees, who may no longer qualify for Medicaid when the PHE expires, transition to employer-sponsored plans when eligible. We also question the requests for new COVID-19 spending measures when the Administration has acknowledged the pandemic is over. Lastly, we encourage the Administration to provide consistent and factual information regarding the end of the pandemic.”
The Members continued: “As the federal government looks to wind down the COVID-19 PHE and transition away from purchasing all COVID-19 vaccines, the Biden Administration should quickly inform the American public and private insurers of the planned offramp. We, therefore, encourage the administration to take the following actions: allow the commercial market, states, and localities to procure and distribute COVID-19 vaccines and boosters; allow the commercial market, states, and localities to procure and distribute medical countermeasures, including monoclonal antibody treatments, oral antiviral pills, and preventative treatments for immunocompromised individuals; and fully transition the responsibility of COVID-19 testing of privately insured individuals—and maintaining the testing capacity for this population—to the commercial market.”
The Members also question the administration’s ability to follow its own recommendations: “Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to the President, recently announced that the United States is now ‘out of the pandemic phase.’ Any American over the age of five can receive a vaccine, and more than 250 million Americans have had at least one dose of a safe, effective COVID-19 vaccine The federal government has spent over $5 trillion fighting this pandemic, and more emergency supplemental packages are unlikely to change the endemic nature of this disease. Emergency government intervention and appropriations may have been appropriate during the chaotic and uncertain times of the early pandemic; however, these kinds of measures are no longer smart or fiscally responsible. This includes further extensions of the $5 billion per month federal student loan repayment moratorium and hundreds of billions in proposed loan forgiveness when college graduates have near-record low unemployment and less than one percent of private student loan borrowers are receiving emergency relief.”
Original source can be found here
