COVID-19 Update: U.S. House passes Families First Coronavirus Response Act in 1 AM vote

With so much chang­ing so fast, it’s already once again time for a anoth­er install­ment of of our spe­cial series COVID-19 Update, bring­ing you the lat­est devel­op­ments on the nov­el coro­n­avirus out­break that pub­lic health author­i­ties here and through­out the coun­try are work­ing dili­gent­ly to mitigate.

Unlike some of the non­sense that is unfor­tu­nate­ly cir­cu­lat­ing on social media, all the infor­ma­tion you’ll find here is accu­rate and vetted.

A short time ago, the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives took action on H.R. 6201, the final ver­sion of the Fam­i­lies First Coro­n­avirus Response Act agreed to by Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi and Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Steven Mnuchin (on behalf of his boss, Don­ald Trump). In a big bipar­ti­san vote of three hun­dred and six­ty-three to forty — with all of the nay votes sup­plied by Repub­li­cans — the House sent the mea­sure over to the Sen­ate, which plans to con­sid­er it ear­ly next week.

The bill stip­u­lates that any­one who needs to be test­ed for coro­n­avirus shall be test­ed at no cost to them. Prami­la Jaya­pal’s office says it also includes:

• paid emer­gency leave with two weeks of paid sick leave and up to three months of paid fam­i­ly and med­ical leave;
• enhanced unem­ploy­ment insur­ance, a step that will extend pro­tec­tions to fur­loughed workers;
• strength­ened nutri­tion secu­ri­ty ini­tia­tives, includ­ing Sup­ple­men­tal Nutri­tion Assis­tance Pro­gram (SNAP), stu­dent meals, seniors’ nutri­tion and food banks; and increased fed­er­al funds for Med­ic­aid to sup­port our local, state, trib­al and ter­ri­to­r­i­al gov­ern­ments and health systems.

The bill “builds on the bipar­ti­san $8.3 bil­lion emer­gency coro­n­avirus spend­ing pack­age Con­gress signed into law on March 6th,” Jaya­pal’s office said. “That pack­age – con­sist­ing entire­ly of new funds – includ­ed sup­port for state and local health agen­cies, vac­cine and treat­ment devel­op­ment, and loans for affect­ed small busi­ness­es to lessen the eco­nom­ic blow of this pub­lic health emergency.”

The roll call from the Pacif­ic North­west was as follows:

Vot­ing Aye: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, Den­ny Heck (WA), Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrad­er (OR); Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers (WA), Greg Walden (OR), Greg Gian­forte (MT), Mike Simp­son (ID)

Vot­ing Nay: Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Russ Fulcher (ID)

Not Vot­ing: Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Don Young (AK)

The heart­less and mil­i­tant Repub­li­can Russ Fulcher of Ida­ho was the only rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the region to inde­fen­si­bly vote against the bill.

“I am very proud to write that the pro­vi­sions we put forth with your input, includ­ing paid sick leave, paid fam­i­ly and med­ical leave, enhanced Unem­ploy­ment Insur­ance, food secu­ri­ty ini­tia­tives and free and wide­spread test­ing, are all includ­ed in this agree­ment,” Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi told col­leagues before the vote.

“The eco­nom­ic impacts of the coro­n­avirus out­break have been dev­as­tat­ing to work­ing fam­i­lies across the coun­try,” said U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Adam Smith.

“Amer­i­cans des­per­ate­ly need relief right now and the Fam­i­lies First Coro­n­avirus Response Act is a strong start toward deliv­er­ing just that.”

“We must not for­get our most impor­tant job: pro­tect­ing the health and safe­ty of the Amer­i­can peo­ple,” Smith declared. “They need and deserve free coro­n­avirus test­ing, paid sick leave, enhanced unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits, expand­ed food assis­tance pro­grams, and addi­tion­al fund­ing for states, local juris­dic­tions, and health sys­tems respond­ing to the outbreak.”

“This bill pro­vides free coro­n­avirus test­ing to all indi­vid­u­als who need a test, regard­less of whether they are insured or uninsured.”

“Addi­tion­al­ly, we also increase fed­er­al funds for Med­ic­aid to sup­port the state and local gov­ern­ments and health sys­tems that have already expend­ed sig­nif­i­cant resources respond­ing to this crisis.

“It is imper­a­tive that we sup­port those who expe­ri­ence finan­cial bur­dens dur­ing this health cri­sis. The bill estab­lish­es two weeks of paid sick leave and up to three months of paid fam­i­ly and med­ical leave. It also strength­ens food assis­tance pro­grams to help keep food on the table for chil­dren, fam­i­lies, and seniors.”

“The Act is a crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant step by Con­gress to sup­port our abil­i­ty to respond to this cri­sis, but it can­not be the last action Con­gress takes. More sup­port is clear­ly need­ed to pro­tect our pub­lic health, and we must expe­dite the deliv­ery of med­ical sup­plies and test kits, alle­vi­ate the stress put on our health care sys­tem, and mit­i­gate against the eco­nom­ic impacts of the crisis.”

“Wash­ing­ton state is at the epi­cen­ter of the spread of COVID-19 in the Unit­ed States, and des­per­ate­ly needs imme­di­ate help from the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jaya­pal. “My num­ber one pri­or­i­ty is to ensure Con­gress is doing every­thing we can to pro­vide crit­i­cal resources to the front­line pub­lic health experts, health care work­ers and first respon­ders, and sup­port work­ing peo­ple and fam­i­lies most impact­ed by this pub­lic health emergency.”

“We are in the mid­dle of a glob­al pan­dem­ic and this pack­age can­not be the last,” Jaya­pal warned. “Con­gress must con­tin­ue respond­ing to emerg­ing needs with great urgency — and con­tin­ue putting sci­ence and tar­get­ed respons­es to help the most vul­ner­a­ble work­ing peo­ple first, espe­cial­ly the needs of hourly work­ers, includ­ing domes­tic work­ers and oth­ers, who sim­ply do not have any safe­ty nets to help them through these dif­fi­cult times.”

NPI con­grat­u­lates the House on approv­ing this leg­is­la­tion. We urge the Sen­ate to swift­ly adopt it so that it can be pre­sent­ed to Trump to be signed into law.