Billions in Hospital Virus Aid Rested on Compliance With Private Vendor

[Danmel]

Source: New York Times

Outbreak
LIVELatest Updates
Maps and Cases
Vaccine Tracker
Measures to Boost Vaccine Rates
Economy
Billions in Hospital Virus Aid Rested on Compliance With Private Vendor
The Department of Health and Human Services told hospitals in April that reporting to the vendor, TeleTracking Technologies, was a “prerequisite to payment.”

Performing surgery on a coronavirus patient in Houston last month. Hospital data includes information about caseloads, deaths, bed capacity and personal protective equipment.
Performing surgery on a coronavirus patient in Houston last month. Hospital data includes information about caseloads, deaths, bed capacity and personal protective equipment.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Sheryl Gay Stolberg
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Aug. 23, 2020
Updated 6:58 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration tied billions of dollars in badly needed coronavirus medical funding this spring to hospitals’ cooperation with a private vendor collecting data for a new Covid-19 database that bypassed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The highly unusual demand, aimed at hospitals in coronavirus hot spots using funds passed by Congress with no preconditions, alarmed some hospital administrators and even some federal health officials.

The office of the health secretary, Alex M. Azar II, laid out the requirement in an April 21 email obtained by The New York Times that instructed hospitals to make a one-time report of their Covid-19 admissions and intensive care unit beds to TeleTracking Technologies, a company in Pittsburgh whose $10.2 million, five-month government contract has drawn scrutiny on Capitol Hill.

“Please be aware that submitting this data will inform the decision-making on targeted Relief Fund payments and is a prerequisite to payment,” the message read.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/us/politics/coronavirus-data.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

[secondwind]

1. No doubt Kushner is involved.

As Jared Kushner has set himself a prominent role in the administration’s coronavirus response, there’s been a growing chorus of questions about what, exactly, he’s up to and how much the public will ever find out about it. Today, a trio of lawmakers are demanding answers from Jared Kushner about work his public-private taskforce has reportedly been doing with a “range of technology firms” to “establish a far-reaching public health surveillance system” in response to the pandemic.

Democratic senators Mark Warner of Virginia and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, along with Rep. Anna Eshoo of California, wrote a letter to Kushner on Friday asking about the issue three days after Politico reported that Kushner’s shadow task force had “reached out to a range of health technology companies about creating a national coronavirus surveillance system” that would give government “a near real-time view” of patients seeking treatment. Even though Politico cited interviews with “seven tech executives, government officials and other people familiar with its contours,” a White House spokesperson denied to the news outlet that Kushner had any knowledge of such plans.

Mother Jones, April 10, 2020

[IronLionZion]

2. Profit over people

Private sector efficiency has worked out super well to quickly and cheaply end this pandemic before all those shithole socialist countries could even dream of. MAGA!

[iluvtennis]

4. Exactly. Wealth over health. nt

[Midnightwalk]

3. What a shockingly small amount

Swinging this deal took some doing. They forced hospitals to provide data by threatening funds they were entitled to and for only 11 million dollars?

That’s how little it takes for trump to sell out Americans.

I hope the data didn’t contain any personal data.