President Trump met with a number of health insurance company CEOs on Tuesday morning as the Wuhan virus continues to spread in the United States and around the world. Health insurance companies have agreed to cover Wuhan virus testing and will not charge a co-pay.
Insurance companies represented at WH meeting with Pres and VP:
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) March 10, 2020
-Anthem
-United Health
-Humana
-Centene
-AHIP
-Express Scripts
-Cigna
-Blue Cross/Blue Shield
-AETNA/CVS
-Kaiser pic.twitter.com/FpkrfsIn7T
VP Pence tells Pres Trump that all the insurance companies at their meeting today have agreed to waive copays for Coronavirus testing and treatment. They've also agreed to cover telemedicine for seniors and for "no surprise billing. pic.twitter.com/6xrjFf0f5S
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) March 10, 2020
President Trump is headed to Capitol Hill this afternoon for a meeting with lawmakers about passing a payroll tax cut and help for hourly workers to blunt the economic fallout of the virus. Late last week a $8.5 billion emergency funding package was passed and signed into law.
"We're also going to be talking about hourly wage earners getting help so that they can be in a position where they're not going to ever miss a paycheck. We'll be working with companies, small companies, large companies, a lot of companies so that they don't get penalized for something that's not their fault. It's not their fault, it's not our country's fault. This was something that we were thrown into and we're going to handle it, we have been handling it very well. The big decision was early when we shut down our borders," Trump said Tuesday night during a briefing from the White House.
Vice President Mike Pence will hold a press briefing from the White House Tuesday evening to give an update on the virus and the ongoing work of the administration task force to mitigate the situation.