Vaccines, Testing and Boosting Medicaid Payments Included in $1.9 trillion COVID-19 Relief Package

As the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package makes its way to the Senate for voting, AdvantEdge Healthcare Solutions highlighted key sections of the bill that will directly impact the healthcare industry.

Vaccines and Testing

• $46 billion to Health and Human Services (HHS) for testing, including creating a national strategy for testing and contact tracing of COVID-19.
  • $1.75 billion will go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to improve genomic sequencing variants to identify variants of the virus.
• $7.5 billion allocated to the CDC to promote and administer COVID-19 vaccines.
  • $1 billion to boost vaccine confidence throughout the United States.

Medicaid

• A bid to further entice states to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The relief package would add a five percentage point increase for two years to the state’s base federal matching rate if they decided to expand.
• The relief package would give Medicaid eligibility to incarcerated individuals 30 days before their prison release for five years.
• Medicaid would cover any COVID-19 vaccines and treatments without any cost-sharing.
• Lift a cap on Medicaid drug rebates in 2023.