OPINION:
President Biden announced through his Office of Management and Budget that he’s going to “end” on May 11 the two COVID-tied public health emergencies that America has been living under since January 2020.
Given these same public health emergencies were due to expire on March 1 and on April 11 — what Biden actually meant by “end” was expand.
In other words: Don’t get your hopes up, folks.
The COVID “emergency” is not truly ended. It’s only being floated to one day, eventually, hopefully, one fine May 11 day, come to an end. Kind of like when Biden himself declared months and months ago the pandemic had ended, only this time, with an exclamation mark attached to the announcement.
“The COVID-19 national emergency and public health emergency (PHE) were declared by the Trump Administration in 2020,” OMB said in a statement. True enough. But it was the Biden administration that kept in place the PHE’s long after the actual public health emergency had passed. Twelve times: That’s how many times the PHEs have been extended since Trump days. Twelve.
OMB went on: “The [PHEs] are currently set to expire on March 1 and April 11, respectively. At present, the Administration’s plan is to extend the emergency declarations to May 11, and then end both emergencies on that date.”
At present.
Meaning: Things could change.
February to May is a long time.
A lot could change over the course of those months and weeks. For instance, a surge of case counts — meaningless though those numbers may be — of test positives for the next itineration of the coronavirus could come to light, leading the bureaucrats who love lockdowns to issue yet another emergency warning about COVID, leading Biden to climb his White House podium and proclaim with as much woe as he can muster, another emergency, another health emergency, another expansion of public health emergencies.
You know what else could happen during the weeks between now and May 11?
The medical community’s powerful lobbyists could convince their Capitol Hill cronies to keep in place the emergency declarations so that the COVID-tied waivers granting fast and easy funding don’t stop. The American Hospital Association, for instance, has been petitioning for feds to make permanent certain waivers tied to the PHEs. So has the American Medical Association. Don’t let the medical community fool you. The pandemic’s been good to them.
Look at this, from the AMA’s website: “To help mitigate the impact of the pandemic on the financial health of physician practice, [the AMA has] successfully urged Congress to pass legislation to prevent 2 percent Medicare payment sequester cuts … [and] also persuaded the Administration to hold physicians harmless for MIPS penalties during the pandemic reporting period.”
What are MIPS penalties?
MIPS stands for Medicare’s Merit-based Incentive Payment System. It’s a rating system for medical providers that came by way of the 2015 Medical Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act that “imposes financial penalties on low-performing clinicians’ Medicare reimbursements,” ACEPnow.com wrote.
The federal government delayed the penalty aspect due to COVID.
That’s just one dole-out to medical providers based on COVID emergency orders. One — of dozens and dozens and dozens.
And if you still think these PHEs are about health and not money or power and control, then consider this: Why is the OMB the agency to announce a May end to the PHEs?
Why not Health and Human Services? Or even the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services?
What’s more — does a virus really follow the dictates of government?
If Biden could truly end a public health emergency by simply affixing a date, he should have made a show of it on Inauguration Day.
Read the tea leaves. These PHEs are nothing but bogus extensions of pandemic power-grabs — feigned emergencies for political interests.
And don’t bank on May 11 being the end of them, either.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
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