Biden to end Covid emergency declarations May 11

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The Biden administration has announced it will extend the national Covid emergencies through May 11, the White House said on Monday.

The public health national emergencies were declared by President Donald Trump in January 2020, and have been renewed every three months. The current national health emergency and the public health emergency are now set to expire on March 1 and April 11.

In December, a group of 25 Republican governors, including Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, wrote a letter to Biden, requesting he end the emergency in April, at the end of the current declared emergency.

“We ask that you allow the PHE [Public Health Emergency] to expire in April and provide states with much needed certainty well in advance of its expiration,” the governors wrote.

The emergency is negatively affecting states, primarily by artificially growing the number of people under Medicaid (both traditional and expanded populations), regardless of whether individuals continue to be eligible under the program, the governors wrote.

“While the enhanced federal match provides some assistance to blunt the increasing costs due to higher enrollment numbers in our Medicaid programs, states are required to increase our non-federal match to adequately cover all enrollees and cannot disenroll members from the program unless they do so voluntarily. Making the situation worse, we know that a considerable number of individuals have returned to employer sponsored coverage or are receiving coverage through the individual market, and yet states still must still account and pay for their Medicaid enrollment in our non-federal share. This is costing states hundreds of millions of dollars,” the governors said in their letter. 

“It is time we move on from the pandemic and get back to life as normal,” the governors wrote. 

But Biden wants to extend the emergency for another month so hospitals and health officials can prepare for a return for normalcy.

The White House wrote that an abrupt end to the emergency declarations would create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system — for states, for hospitals and doctors’ offices, and, most importantly, for tens of millions of Americans.

“During the PHE, the Medicaid program has operated under special rules to provide extra funding to states to ensure that tens of millions of vulnerable Americans kept their Medicaid coverage during a global pandemic. In December, Congress enacted an orderly wind-down of these rules to ensure that patients did not lose access to care unpredictably and that state budgets don’t face a radical cliff. If the PHE were suddenly terminated, it would sow confusion and chaos into this critical wind-down. Due to this uncertainty, tens of millions of Americans could be at risk of abruptly losing their health insurance, and states could be at risk of losing billions of dollars in funding,” the White House wrote.

The lifting of the national emergencies also means an end to the Title 42 provision that has allowed the United States to quickly remove illegal immigrants from the country.

“While the Administration has attempted to terminate the Title 42 policy and continues to support an orderly lifting of those restrictions, Title 42 remains in place because of orders issued by the Supreme Court and a district court in Louisiana. Enactment of H.R. 382 [a bill offered by Republicans in the House] would lift Title 42 immediately, and result in a substantial additional inflow of migrants at the Southwest border,” the White House said.

“The Administration supports an orderly, predictable wind-down of Title 42, with sufficient time to put alternative policies in place. But if H.R. 382 becomes law and the Title 42 restrictions end precipitously, Congress will effectively be requiring the Administration to allow thousands of migrants per day into the country immediately without the necessary policies in place,” the White House said.

Biden opposes two Republican bills that would terminate both of the emergency declarations. Neither bills [H.R. 382 and H.J. Res. 7] are expected to pass the Senate, which is controlled by the Democrats.

14 COMMENTS

  1. The con goes on, the con goes on.

    It’s the goal of the progressives to make life as miserable for the plebs as possible. A broken society is a compliant one.

  2. The current President is probably all for ending the Pando foolishness on May 11 – – – 2037.

    “Never let a serious crisis go to waste”. Rahm Emanuel

    Always great to know that we are too often led by animals with a blood temperature equal to the temperature of the surrounding environment.

  3. Oh good. There weren’t enough brand new people speaking Spanish in Freddie’s with shopping carts filled to the brim. I’m sure the federally funded social services are already lining up weidner apartments to fill up via tax dollar “grants”.

  4. “The White House wrote that an abrupt end to the emergency declarations would create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system”
    What a crock of stuff.
    .
    Seriously. It is the end of January. What is abrupt about ending the “emergency” on April 11th? Is 10 weeks notice not enough time? The healthcare system did not get 10 weeks notice before the emergency declaration took effect, but the administration thinks they need to give at least 15 weeks notice to end it?
    .
    Crock of stuff.
    .
    And, what “emergency” is waiting in the wings? Do you really think any politician would voluntarily give up emergency powers?

  5. It only feels like 15 days since this who $hit-show started…….. I wonder who got rich at the expense of critical thinking and common sense!

  6. And yet the usurper Biden cabal is STILL fighting to reinstitute the draconian, dehumanizing and totally ineffective mask mandates for all air travelers in the USA.
    .
    Clown world.

  7. Yeah it’s time, probably past time. Each time the virus mutates it gets a little weaker to where it is now, hardly as dangerous as the yearly flu. The seasonal flu is dangerous I’m not trying to play that down and it kills many people each year with underlying health circumstances, but covet has mutated to a point where it’s not scary. I just got over my second covid bout that lasted about 3 weeks but I’m old and have just about everything wrong with me that someone can have so it takes me a little longer to bounce back.

  8. Remember 50 years ago when Anchorage had 3 TV stations, they functioned part time and programing was 3 weeks behind?

    At the time we Alaskans were pushing the limits of technology and communication; it was the absolute best that could be done given the time.

    For every action there is an equal and opposite. Ours is Mr. Biden and occurring a half century late. Oddly, his comments are completely inapplicable as no one is interested in the C-19 BS now 3 years stale. I saw a kid in Safeway a few days ago, unkempt and apparently somewhat carefree. He walked down the OTC drug aisle with his left hand holding the left side of his jacket open as far as it would possibly stretch. Rocking left to right he occasionally hacked into his mask. The fallout from Mr. Biden’s C-19 is also now the opposite of what it once seemed. The original lie was that a piece of paper over your schnoz would protect you. Now when you see that same piece of paper you know that you’re likely looking at a walking dish rag that doesn’t want to stay home.

  9. Biden already declared the pandemic was over when he was on 60 Minutes in mid September. “The pandemic is over,” he said. “We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape, and so I think it’s changing, and I think [the Detroit auto show resuming after three years] is a perfect example of it.”

    Does anyone actually care what this clown says? He doesn’t care what he says, or at least he can’t remember it.

  10. Cmon, lets face it, we have a moron in the white house who is about to start a nuclear exchange no one can possibly survive, if he were to a hero he would be focusing on a peace plan with Ukraine and Russia.

    • Why bother? If you were Mr. Putin you would consider what had been your territory to still be your territory. Where I he I wouldn’t give two sh*ts about another country’s opinion as moved to reclaim any enclaves w/in my purview. The goofball in a green t-shirt that appears to be the head of Ukraine is doing nothing more than draining his region of money and now draining ours as well. Biden would tell him to get stuffed were it not for the millions funneled from that obscure dystopia to his meth addict kid.

      Stop believing whatever your TV tells you and think for yourself. There’s nothing about that conflict that makes any sense to an Alaskan or an American.

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