COVID Update April 22: Shiny objects, who’s getting screwed, and what can we do.

Will tweet after @CNN with @ChrisCuomo at 9:35 Eastern. Follow if interested. 1/

Quiz while you wait if you want. This one is each to cheat.

Age gap between @NYGovCuomo & @ChrisCuomo?

Extra credit— which one would you rather have as a cousin?

The answer is 13 years and Chris. 3/

Let me start here. The Trump Adminiatration is doling out CARES $ to health care providers. When this happens everyone scrambles for theirs.

Some call me to plead their case because those decisions used to be in my court. (They’re not any more.) 4/

The bulk of funding goes to hospitals based on what—- COVID patients? No. Financial distress? No. Lost revenue? No. Rural? No. Seeing low income patients? It’s based on revenue. 5/

The logic is that those with the most revenue lose the most revenue when elective surgeries are cancelled.

Yes. And Boeing loses more than a corner dry cleaner when the economy is bad. But you can’t ignore the dry cleaner. 6/

Bad analogy aside, we are worried about the collapse of Medicaid providers, mental health professionals, family medicine, safety net hospitals, & community health centers. 7/

As one state health secretary told me...8/

Let me tell you something about people who serve Medicaid patients. They do it because they want to, not for the money. They care, they don’t have to do it. They know they are under-reimbursed. They often barely get by.

And their patients are disproportionately affected. 9/