Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, whose state has been hit by a coronavirus outbreak, spoke about the epidemic on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
Photo: Caroline Brehman/Zuma PressLawmakers and federal officials, alarmed by the spread of the coronavirus, are moving to plug gaps in the U.S. health-care system that could worsen the epidemic by deterring people from getting tested, such as a lack of insurance and paid sick days, as well as the cost of medical care.
Democrats including Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, which has been hit by the epidemic, called on Tuesday for the passage of paid sick-leave legislation after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged businesses to let workers with symptoms stay home. About 33.6 million U.S. workers have no access to paid sick leave, according to the Labor Department.
Congress reached an agreement Wednesday on funding a roughly $8 billion response to the epidemic. The House is expected to pass the legislation later Wednesday, and the Senate is expected to do the same this week. President Trump has said he would sign whatever package Congress approves.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday that officials have begun to consider measures to support workers who may not have paid sick leave. “We’re looking at all different types of options on the table to address all these issues,” he said. “As we come back later with recommendations, we will work with Congress.”
The Trump administration is considering using a national disaster program to pay hospitals and doctors for their care of uninsured people infected with coronavirus as concerns rise over costs of treating some of the roughly 27 million Americans without health coverage, a person familiar with the conversations said Tuesday.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a directive Tuesday requiring insurers to waive cost-sharing associated with coronavirus testing, as well as emergency-room, urgent-care and office visits.
So far, there are more than 100 confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S., with 11 deaths following contraction of Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus. More cases are expected as testing accelerates.
The structure of the U.S. health system poses challenges for the nation’s coronavirus response plan, which relies on testing to identify cases, treatment of infected individuals and strategies to minimize spread, such as encouraging people who are sick to stay home.
More Americans are becoming uninsured and deferring medical care because of mounting out-of-pocket costs. About half of service workers, who often have direct contact with the public, lack paid sick leave, and immigrants are facing new regulatory barriers to getting health care.
Employers are supposed to encourage workers with respiratory symptoms to stay home if they are sick or need to care for family members under coronavirus guidance issued by the CDC. But there is no national requirement for paid sick leave, and about 25% of workers don’t have the benefit, according to federal data.
“I’m only part-time, and part-time workers don’t get sick leave,” said James Hark, 36 years old, a bartender in Detroit. “If I’m sick, I feel like I have to work.”
Congressional Democrats have been pushing the paid sick leave bill proposed by Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Ms. Murray of Washington that would require employers with 15 or more workers to provide up to seven days of paid sick leave a year, and all the leading Democratic presidential candidates support a national paid sick leave requirement.
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“The coronavirus has really shone a spotlight on how urgent this policy is,” said Alex Baptiste, policy counsel at the National Partnership for Women and Families, an advocacy group. “This is an issue that should have been dealt with a long time ago.”
Democratic presidential candidates who back Medicare for All say the epidemic shows a need for the federal government to play a larger role in the nation’s health system.
“It has never been more important to guarantee health care as a human right by passing Medicare for All,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) said in a Feb. 27 statement.
People without health insurance may be less likely to seek out tests or health care, complicating efforts by public health officials to identify cases. There were 27.5 million people without health insurance in the U.S. in 2018, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, up from 25.6 million in 2017.
The roughly 10 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are especially likely to go without testing, advocates say. Under a Trump administration rule that kicked in last month, those who use Medicaid and other benefits to which they are legally entitled would find it harder to obtain residency status.
The Latest on the Coronavirus
- Number of confirmed cases of infection outside mainland China passes 13,000
- New cases in New York and Georgia brought the number of infected people in the U.S. to at least 100 Tuesday
- Johns Hopkins University says coronavirus has infected 90,926 people globally since late 2019 and 53% of those patients recovered
- Johns Hopkins says a total of 3,117 coronavirus patients around the world have died
Individuals who fall ill with the virus could face hefty medical bills, compared with people in a number of other countries with national health plans, including South Korea, where more than 4,000 cases have been reported and whose health system is employer- and employee-funded.
Hundreds or thousands of people may need treatment because an estimated 2% of individuals infected with coronavirus develop severe cases that can require ventilators and weekslong stays in hospital intensive care units, based on research on cases in China. An intensive care unit stay with mechanical ventilation costs more than $11,000 a day, according to a 2005 study in the Journal of Critical Care Medicine.
But the data has been in flux. Another study citing original research in JAMA Forum, which is published by the Journal of the American Medicine Association, found 5% of cases were critical.
The World Health Organization on Monday reported a coronavirus death rate of 3.4%.
A record 25% of Americans say they or a family member put off treatment for a serious medical condition in the past year because of the cost, up from 19% a year earlier, a December Gallup poll showed.
Over the past 10 years, the average enrollee out-of-pocket spending has grown 58%, more than double the increase in workers’ wages during the same period, according to a study last year by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Peterson Center on Healthcare.
Amid the epidemic, Democrats are criticizing the Trump administration for rolling back the Affordable Care Act and backing a lawsuit that would strike down the health law. The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a legal challenge on the lawsuit.
The administration also has expanded access to health plans that don’t cover the same benefits as ACA plans. Consumer advocates say the plans put people who get ill from the coronavirus at financial risk.
Republicans say the ACA has driven up the cost of premiums and made health care unaffordable for more Americans.
Write to Stephanie Armour at stephanie.armour@wsj.com
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