CMS released new criteria for nursing homes to reopen, but few facilities appear ready to meet the restrictions
Health care workers would be among the first to receive any vaccine so they can continue to work the pandemic’s front lines. But deciding which groups come next — the elderly, medically vulnerable people, grocery store and meat plant workers, children — is fraught with ethical dilemmas and ripe for political power plays, POLITICO’s Sarah Owermohle reports.
Senior administration officials on a May 12 interagency call — a recording of which was obtained by POLITICO's Alice Miranda Ollstein — acknowledged the benefits issue and said the federal government needs to come up with a messaging strategy around the June 24 "hard stop," anticipating states would have concerns.
No official on the call raised the possibility of an extension of the federal deployment, though the National Guard told Alice that one could still happen in the coming weeks.The National Guard is leading efforts in several states on testing, contact tracing, stocking food banks, delivering PPE to medical workers, staffing field hospitals and more — providing crucial support to underfunded and understaffed state and local health departments.
Without federal funding, state officials told Alice, they would not be able to keep nearly as big a force deployed.Guard members have to serve 90 days in a federal deployment to qualify for credits toward important retirement and education benefits. Currently, the deployment is set to end on day 89 for the thousands who first were activated in late March.
"They’re screwing the National Guard members out of the status they should have," Retired Brig. Gen. J. Roy Robinson, president of the National Guard Association, told Alice.
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