[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 52 (Wednesday, March 18, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1803-S1804]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I have so appreciated the comments of 
my colleagues today as they have come to the floor and they have talked 
about how they are approaching what is happening with this coronavirus 
pandemic and what they are hearing from the citizens of their States.
  I know each of us is spending our day listening to the people in our 
States and listening to their concerns and hearing them say: As you 
look at how you are going to address this, don't forget about us. Don't 
forget about us--whether it is independent contractors who are working 
in the music industry or television producers--I was talking to one 
last night; they lost $9,000 worth of production work this week--or 
theme park owners who are trying to figure out how they are going to 
work through this or the CEO of one of our Nation's airlines earlier 
today. People are looking to us to make certain that we address this 
situation in a way that is going to stabilize it and that is going to 
provide assistance.
  As we have worked through this, one of the things I think sometimes 
is just a really good thing to do is to stop and kind of take stock of 
where we are and how it is going to be best to move forward.
  I think it is important to realize that we have already directed 
resources to the coronavirus pandemic. There is the coronavirus 
supplemental, which was an $8.3 billion piece of legislation. That may 
seem like a lifetime ago to some of those in our States. It was a 
couple of weeks ago. That money is already making its way out. 
Tennessee received $10 million this week in order to work on public 
health needs around the coronavirus.
  We also had our President move forward without hesitation to do the 
national emergency declaration. That freed up $50 billion of resources. 
That is money that is going to our States and our localities to help 
with the response for this, to get those resources where they need to 
go.
  Of course, there was legislation that passed today, and in that, I 
supported the Johnson amendment. I do fully believe that working 
through this with our unemployment insurance and our employment 
security system is the way to go. I have supported the payroll tax 
holiday. I am one of those who have always said: Why should we have to 
pay the government to hire somebody? So the payroll tax holiday made 
sense to me. The Johnson amendment that I cosponsored makes sense to 
me, that we could do it because we could more quickly get resources to 
individuals, from the Federal Government to the taxpayer, to the 
individual. That is what we need to do at this time.
  Tennessee is very blessed. We have had a very low unemployment rate. 
But what we have seen in the last 2 or 3 weeks is that unemployment 
claims have quadrupled, and we expect this is going to continue as 
workers, independent contractors, sole proprietors, and small 
businesses see their income stream or their revenue stream go from 
something healthy to zero. That has happened literally overnight, just 
within a few days as the economy started to shut down.
  What we hear from people is, look, this is not something we have 
done, it is something that has been done to us, and we are being asked 
to close our doors and to change the way we operate. So they repeatedly 
say: Don't forget about us, and do not give us mandates we cannot 
afford, because what we need is assistance to bridge that gap.
  When we talk about mandates that you can't afford, Tennesseans are 
very concerned about the paid family leave provisions that are in the 
legislation today. What I have heard repeatedly--repeatedly--whether it 
is someone who runs a nursing staffing company or a furniture store or 
a small manufacturing company, is that the tax credit provision is not 
going to work with cash flow. They mention that repeatedly. So my hope 
is that we can come together on a bipartisan basis and we

[[Page S1804]]

can address the concerns that are there around that because we want our 
small businesses to keep those doors open and to return to health and 
vitality. We need to listen to what they are saying, which is, help to 
stabilize, to assist us and to help us bridge this divide so that we 
can come back.
  We also need to be listening to our nonprofits that are saying the 
same thing about the family leave provisions and their concerns there.
  You know, we have to bear in mind that all of these employers really 
care for and value their employees. They want to do right by them. They 
want to do right by their communities. And certainly they want to do 
right by the country. But they need our listening ears, and they need 
our attention.
  Another thing that has come up that is of concern that was in the 
legislation that cleared the Chamber today is the Medicaid expansion 
provisions and the way it affects the non-expansion States. It 
adversely impacts States like Tennessee that were non-expansion States. 
There are some definitional changes that need to be made in that 
provision so that we are not adversely impacting these States.
  For our Tennessee business owners and employers, this is a very 
tedious and emotional time. I talked with an employer last night who 
laid off 20 people at a small business. They had to do it in order to 
keep the doors open. But what they all tell me is that they are really 
very grateful that the President, the Vice President, and the task 
force are focused on getting the virus under control, getting the 
response from our country under control, and making certain that we 
address the economic and financial impact of this. They know that it is 
going to be a long way back on this one, that there isn't a quick fix. 
They realize that the way this all happened had to do with China and 
China knowing in December that they had a virus, that they had a 
problem. Knowing that China has lied to us; they kept hidden 
information; they have not been forthcoming; they did not make the 
viral sample available to us in a timely manner; and that lack of 
transparency is something that they point to and they say that we are 
all in this fight together, we want to make certain that China does not 
have the ability to take down our economy or take down our healthcare 
system.

  It is one of the reasons--two of the provisions that I have that will 
come before us are provisions that are focused on, one, bringing our 
production of pharmaceuticals back to the United States. Senator 
Menendez has joined me in this provision, and it is the SAM-C bill--
Securing America's Medicine Cabinet, the SAM-C legislation. What this 
would do is incentivize returning pharmaceutical production to the 
United States, allowing our colleges and universities to access funds 
from a $100 million grant pool to partner up with pharmaceutical 
companies so that we never find ourselves in the position of not being 
able to get the active pharmaceutical ingredients--they are called 
APIs--those ingredients that are necessary to make vaccines and 
antivirals for viruses like the COVID-19.
  Right now, China is saying they may not let us have one of the 
products that we need. We commend our scientists and our companies and 
people like the Denison Lab at Vanderbilt University for the work they 
are doing to find that vaccine and to test that vaccine. We commend 
these labs for the work they are doing to find the right antivirals to 
help people fight this so that we are able to slow the growth, and we 
are able to cap the growth in this.
  Now, we know also that as we go through this, telehealth is vitally 
important. This is something that I have discussed. As you know, I have 
discussed it with our conference, I have discussed it with the White 
House, and with the President, and the Vice President, and I am 
grateful to see the changes that we have in telehealth that is making 
it more available.
  I was talking with a physician from another State--not Tennessee. I 
was talking with him yesterday, and he said: Well, our insurance 
company, which kind of is the only big insurance provider in this 
State, had decided they would allow telehealth through the end of the 
month. It is vitally important that we move these medically complex 
patients and the elderly--especially elderly who have comorbidities and 
have complex medical situations--to telehealth. It is important that 
CMS provide specificity and clarity on how this is going to be paid for 
these Medicaid and Medicare enrollees.
  We commend CMS for moving forward through the 1135 waiver system--
that section of the code with Medicaid--for making some adjustments, 
but it is imperative that for these private insurance companies, that 
we allow more specificity so we can utilize them.
  We have a situation. We know that this virus came out of Wuhan, 
China. We know they knew about it in December. We know that the rest of 
the world found out about it about 6 weeks later. We know it has caused 
a global pandemic. We know every life is precious, and we grieve the 
loss of those lives, the inconvenience, and also the loss of the 
ability of so many people to have their businesses and be able to run 
their businesses, and families who are not able to experience what they 
had planned for this year.
  So we know that we are going to be working ahead. We are going to 
stay here until we get much of this addressed and answer some of the 
questions that our constituents have. We do know we have done some 
work, but there is a lot more work to do, and we fully realize we can 
rise to this occasion.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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