Heals Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as I said, the number of COVID-19 cases has surged in recent weeks in the Rio Grande Valley, South Texas, and throughout the State as well. Just a couple of weeks ago, Texas reported more than 10,000 new cases in a single day, and that happened 5 days in a row.

It certainly was a wake-up call for many who had not had taken the most effective precautions seriously--things like social distancing, good personal hygiene, the wearing of masks if you can't socially distance, and staying home if you are sick. It is amazing what we can do as individuals to stop the spread of this virus by doing those simple things. Unfortunately, some people let their guard down and didn't follow those protocols, so we saw a huge uptick in the number of cases. Thankfully, though, I think the message has been received and understood, and we have recently seen a gradual and encouraging decline in cases.

Yet, as the war against COVID-19 wages on, we can't afford to lose any additional ground whether from a public health perspective or from an economic recovery perspective. So I believe it is time for Congress to pass additional legislation to strengthen our fight. That is why my colleagues and I introduced the HEALS Act yesterday. This legislation builds on the significant progress we have made already in four bipartisan bills that have already passed the Congress and have been signed into law by President Trump that will sustain our effort to defeat this virus and recover economically.

This legislation will ensure that workers who had the rug pulled out from under them earlier this year will continue to receive enhanced unemployment benefits.

It will provide funding to help K-12 schools, colleges, and universities safely and effectively educate their students this fall whether that means there being a combination of online or in-person instruction

It will send additional and needed assistance to our farmers, ranchers, and producers who are keeping our families fed in the midst of the pandemic, and it will give States and local governments the flexibility they have requested and that they need to use CARES Act funding where it is needed the most.

In the coming days, I will talk more about how this legislation supports the workers and institutions that have been hit the hardest by this virus, but, today, I would like to focus on the ways it bolsters our fight against the virus itself.

One of the most important ways we can do that is through testing. The ability to identify positive cases as early as possible is the key to stopping the spread of the virus. Yet, as we have learned, there are massive numbers of people who have the virus who don't even know it and don't experience any symptoms. In short, they don't even feel sick. What we have seen, whether it be in multigenerational households or with the people who are most vulnerable to this virus--mainly, the elderly and the people with underlying health problems--is that they cannot be properly isolated unless we can identify the people who are carrying the virus even though they themselves may not be suffering any symptoms.

The first coronavirus package we passed made testing free. It removed the cost barrier that could prevent those who needed a test from receiving one. At the time, if you were asymptomatic, the CDC--Centers for Disease Control and Prevention--didn't recommend your getting a test. Some of that was because of the constraints on the numbers of tests that were available. The fact is, if you are not suffering from any symptoms, you are probably not highly motivated to go get a test because you may not even know you have the virus, and you may not know you need one.

We are testing a lot more now than we were back then. Congress has provided another $26 billion to scale up testing, and we have gone from conducting an average of 145,000 tests a day nationwide in early April to more than 780,000 per day in mid-July. So that has been a dramatic improvement. What we know is there is more we need to do.

The HEALS Act, which we introduced yesterday, will provide an additional $16 billion to support testing efforts. When combined with the approximately $9 billion that still exists from the previous bills, it will make another $25 billion available to strengthen our testing nationwide. This will help to improve our testing strategy and capacity and reduce the backlog that has left some Texans waiting more than 2 weeks for test results. These tests are not very useful if it takes 2 weeks to get the results.

Because we ramped up the number of people who were tested, the lab companies that were analyzing the tests ended up getting backlogged. Now we have taken corrective measures in cities like Dallas to make other testing available and bring that number down, but this has been a constant challenge. It needs to be as quick and easy as possible for folks not only to get tests but to get the results, and this funding helps to make sure there will be serious strides in support of that goal.

I know there are testing protocols that are being analyzed right now that may make this easier and may even make the results quicker. I know, for example, in the Texas A&M University System, Chancellor Sharp said he has contracted for 15,000 tests a month for students who will return on campus. Now, in his view, he said those students will probably be safer on campus than they will be back home, especially if they end up going to bars or other social venues and do not properly social distance or wear masks.

Beyond testing, we need additional support for the healthcare providers who have been on the frontlines. In my State, I know the Governor has asked a number of hospitals in the hardest hit areas to defer elective surgeries. As I have come to learn and as the Presiding Officer, no doubt, knows, that is how hospitals pay the bills. Many of the people who show up either get charity care or the payment through Medicaid or Medicare is less than that from private health insurance, so hospitals need a mix of elective surgeries and other treatments so they will have full insurance coverage in order to balance their books overall.

Congress has already provided $175 billion for a healthcare provider relief fund, which has given hospitals, clinics, and physicians the resources they need to continue treating COVID-19 patients and stay afloat financially. So far, more than 20,000 hospitals and healthcare providers in my State alone have benefited from that funding, with over $4.1 billion coming to Texas.

The HEALS Act will supplement that fund with an additional $25 billion to help these providers navigate the surge in cases and maintain critical supplies like masks, gloves, and ventilators. If our hospitals don't have the personal protective equipment to protect the frontline staff, the resources to treat patients, or the funding to keep their doors open, we will be in bad, bad shape. This legislation will go a long way to making sure we don't ever reach that point.

In addition to supplementing the healthcare provider relief fund, this legislation will also support some of our most critical health resources. We know our community health centers are an important part of the safety net when it comes to accessing healthcare. This bill will provide $7.6 billion to our community health centers, which usually serve people on a sliding scale based on their ability to pay. Some people have full insurance coverage; others are covered by Medicare or Medicaid; and some simply don't have the means to pay at all, but all are welcome and are treated at our community health centers.

We also send $4.5 billion to mental health, suicide prevention, and substance use disorder services. We all know that the mitigation efforts we have all been engaged in by staying in our homes and not leaving for a period of time, as instructed by public health and other government officials, has exacted a very difficult toll on families, particularly on people who have had nowhere to go to escape somebody who has been abusing them in domestic violence scenarios or on people who are simply feeling a sense of isolation and a challenge to their mental health as they wonder how they are going to pay the bills and take care of their families. Maybe they have loved ones who are in nursing homes--the elderly are particularly vulnerable--whom they haven't been able to see because of the isolation efforts.

And then we know people will self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. So this $4.5 billion is important to help provide the mental health, suicide prevention, and substance use disorder services that are going to be needed not only right now but in the indefinite future.

We also provide an additional $15 billion to the National Institutes of Health for research and an additional $26 billion for vaccine research.

We know our frontline healthcare providers have gotten much, much better and saved many more lives by coming up with treatments that actually have been effective. Some of these are common prescription drugs that are used for other purposes that have been repurposed for treatment of COVID-19 symptoms.

We know that convalescent plasma, taken from people who have had the virus, who have developed immunities, when they donate blood, that plasma can actually be used to help treat patients with serious COVID- 19 symptoms.

And we know that there are other treatments in progress, along with the race to get a vaccine. Ultimately, we know that the vaccine is going to be important to our ability to defeat and live with this virus.

But in the meantime, we know we need to learn to live with this virus in a way that protects our public health and allows us to safely reopen our economy.

So the last thing I want to mention is liability protection. Why is this so important?

Well, as many nonprofits or businesses think about reopening, thinking about kids going back to school safely--whether online and then transitioning to in person, or colleges and universities--we know that there are going to be a lot of lawsuits filed, second guessing why people didn't do something different, when, in fact, this pandemic has surprised all of us in so many ways.

And what this does is provide a safe harbor from legal liability for those individuals who followed government guidance in good faith. It can't be the fact that you would subject a frontline healthcare worker who had no choice but to put on personal protective equipment and go to work to treat patients--it would be a cruel joke to say: Now we are going to come back and file lawsuits against you and sue you for money damages because you didn't somehow know exactly what you were dealing with.

We know that frontline healthcare workers are performing a physically and mentally taxing job, made only more difficult by the fact we didn't understand exactly what we were dealing with, with this novel virus, and we are still learning more.

Well, I learned, for example, about a rural hospital where test kits are in short supply. In fact, it was especially true in the early days as testing infrastructure was being stood up, and I mentioned that a moment ago.

I learned about a hospital in a rural community outside Wichita Falls that only had 12 tests available. Because of limited resources, a physician made the difficult decision not to test an ER patient for COVID-19 because the patient didn't meet the criteria set out by the Centers for Disease Control. The following day, that same patient went to Wichita Falls and received a test, and several days later found out that they tested positive.

Now, imagine you are that physician. You followed the CDC guidelines for testing; you tried to conserve the limited resources available in your community; but there is nothing stopping the patient from heading to the nearest lawyer's office and filing a lawsuit against you for somehow refusing them a test.

All of a sudden, you are scrambling to defend yourself in a lawsuit that, quite frankly, should not have been filed in the first place.

But I have spent enough time in courtrooms to know that many times lawsuits are not filed with the goal of actually prevailing on the merits; they are filed in order to gain a settlement because the cost of defending yourself can be large, indeed. And, in fact, if you are a business that has been hanging on by a thread, just the threat of that kind of litigation and the expense and energy it takes to defend that case, even though it lacks merit, could well cause you to throw in the towel or put you out of business.

So we have introduced, as part of this HEALS Act, legislation that will provide that safe harbor. It will not provide blanket immunity; it will not protect against intentional or reckless misconduct; but it would establish clear guardrails like those in a number of States. As a matter of fact, 30 different States have passed similar protections for their healthcare workers. Other States have done it in other categories, but it is important, I believe, for us to provide clear authority so people know what they are dealing with.

I would note, for example, that some of these same guardrails are very similar to those enacted by Executive order in the minority leader's home State of New York. I know the legislature has now sent Governor Cuomo another bill, basically, with the same framework, and he has not yet made a decision to sign that.

But overall the HEALS Act will help provide the resources Texas hospitals, clinics, and healthcare providers need to sustain and win this fight, while protecting our heroic healthcare workers from a second epidemic in the courtroom.

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