House GOP Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) is demanding answers from governors whose COVID-19 policies led to a massive influx of deaths in nursing homes. The Louisiana Republican penned letters to Govs. Andrew Cuomo (NY), Phil Murphy (NJ), Tom Wolf (PA), Gavin Newsom (CA) and Gretchen Whitmer (MI) asking why COVID-positive patients were allowed into nursing homes in the first place.
This negligence was a clear violation of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) and Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) respective guidelines. As Rep. Scalise notes in his letter to Gov. Cuomo, CMS Administrator Seema Verma prohibited moving COVID-positive patients into nursing home facilities:
“U[nder] no circumstances should a hospital discharge a patient to a nursing home that is not prepared to take care of the patient’s needs,” she said.
?? Just sent letters to the Democrat governors of NY, NJ, CA, PA, and MI demanding they explain why they ignored protocols and forced COVID-19 patients into nursing homes.
— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) June 15, 2020
The outcome was devastating.
Families who lost loved ones deserve answers. This tragedy was avoidable. pic.twitter.com/jfizJJSyfV
In the cases of some states, particularly New York and Michigan, the governors mandated that nursing homes take COVID-positive patients back, without question or even a test. Gov. Cuomo even went as far as to blame the federal government for the influx of nursing home deaths, claiming that this policy was a failure on the national level. In reality, these Democratic governors carelessly ignored federal guidelines, which cost thousands of senior citizens their lives.
