Office of the Press Secretary
|
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP, VICE PRESIDENT PENCE, AND MEMBERS OF THE WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE IN PRESS BRIEFING James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
6:34 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. We just attended a very important task force meeting on the virus that everybody is talking about all over the world. No matter where you go, that's what's on people's minds. And we are going to take care of, and have been taking care of, the American public and the American economy. We are going to be asking tomorrow -- we’re seeing the Senate. We’re going to be meeting with House Republicans -- Mitch McConnell, everybody -- and discussing a possible payroll tax cut or relief, substantial relief -- very substantial relief. That's a big -- that's a big number. 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’re going to be working with companies and 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, and we have been handling it very well. The big decision was early when we shut down our borders. We're the first ones ever to do that. We've never done that in our country before. Or we’d have a situation that would be a lot more dire. Also, we're going to be seeing Small Business Administration and creating loans for small businesses. We're also working with the industries, including the airline industry, the cruise ship industry -- which, obviously, will be hit. We're working with them very, very strongly. We want them to travel. We want people to travel to certain locations and not to other locations at this moment. And hopefully that will straighten out sooner rather than later. But we're working with the industries, and in particular those two industries. We're also talking to the hotel industry. And some places, actually, will do well, and some places probably won't do well at all. But we're working also with the hotel industry. But the main thing is that we're taking care of the American public, and we will be taking care of the American public. And I really appreciate the professionals behind me and the professionals actually behind them, in a different room. We have a tremendous team, and it's headed up by our great Vice President, Mike Pence. And I want to thank Mike because he's been working 24 hours a day, just about. He has been working very, very hard, very diligently, and very professionally. And I want to thank him, and I want to thank the team. And I'll have Mike say a few words. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mike? Please. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr. President. We just completed the day's meeting of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. We had the opportunity to brief the President today on a broad range of issues. And once again, because of the unprecedented action that President Trump took in January -- suspending all travel from China; establishing travel advisories for portions of South Korea and Italy; establishing screening of all direct flights, all passengers from all airports from Italy and South Korea -- we have -- we have bought a considerable amount of time, according to all the health experts, to deal with the coronavirus here in the United States. In fact, as I stand before you today, the risk of contracting the coronavirus to the American public remains low, and the risk of serious disease among the American public also remains low. With that being said, the President did deploy not just a whole-of-government approach, but also a whole-of-America approach. And last week, at the President's direction, we met with leaders in industries, from nursing homes to airlines, pharmaceutical companies, commercial labs, and it's had great, great impact. Pharmaceutical companies are already working, literally around the clock, on the development of therapeutics; that will be medicines that can bring relief to people that contract the coronavirus. And I know how pleased the President was to learn that the commercial labs in this country, led by companies like LabCorp and Quest, have already brought a test forward and are taking that to market effective today. This week, at the President's direction, we’ll be meeting with hospital CEOs, health insurance CEOs, and all -- building on top of what the President will be announcing tomorrow with regard to economic relief for working Americans. We also met today in a conference call with 47 of America's governors. We were able to brief them on the latest -- the progress that we've made. We were able to confirm with them that testing is now available in all state labs in every state in the country. Over a million tests have been distributed. Before the end of this week, another 4 million tests will be distributed. But as I said before, with the deployment of the commercial labs, we literally -- we literally are going to see a dramatic increase in the available -- availability of testing, and that's all a direct result of the President's leadership. Today, in a few moments, we will -- we will outline community guidance that Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci will be publishing. At President's direction, we're going to be providing guidance about how to keep your home safe, how to keep your business safe, how to keep safe and healthy at your school. And we'll be publishing that information and speaking about that. A brief word about the Grand Princess: The Grand Princess has docked this afternoon in Oakland, California, at a commercial dock. Twenty-five children, we were happy to learn through the screening over the last two days -- the 25 children on the ship are all healthy. Of the people that have contracted the coronavirus -- 21 in all -- they’re being dealt with in proper isolation. Working with health authorities in California, we hope before the end of today to begin to disembark California residents to Travis Air Force Base in Miramar. We've made arrangements with Canada and the UK to take their passengers back. They'll be transported directly to the tarmac, charter flights home. And tomorrow, the remaining passengers will be transported, again, through very, very carefully controlled environments -- buses out to the tarmac and flown to military bases in Georgia and Texas. All the passengers will be tested, isolated as appropriate, quarantined as appropriate. And I want to express appreciation to the Governor of California and his administration, the Governor of Georgia, the Governor of Texas, for their strong cooperation with us in resolving the issues around the Grand Princess. It has been a -- it has been a partnership which the President directed us from the very beginning. And the process that Bob Kadlec will detail, and any questions in a few moments, continues to work and move forward. The remaining people on the ship -- the crew itself will push off from the dock, and they will be quarantined and observed and treated shipboard. But the President made the priority to get -- to get the Americans ashore, and we're in the process of doing that, as well as returning the foreign nationals. Let me just say one other point: As the President has spoken today to congressional leadership, one of the things that I informed the President that I've been hearing from governors is the concern about hourly wage earners in this country feeling that they had to go to work, even if they were ill. And the President has tasked this economic team, and is working already with leaders in the Congress, to make sure that anyone is not -- feels that they’re at risk of losing their job or losing a paycheck because they may contract the coronavirus. When we tell people, “If you're sick, stay home,” the President has tasked the team with developing economic policies that will make it very, very clear that we're going to stand by those hardworking Americans, stand by those businesses large and small, and make it possible for us, as the President said from the very beginning, to put the health of America first. We'll be available to take any questions on any of these topics, but, Mr. President, I didn't know if you wanted to speak a few more, in closing. THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think what we will be doing is having a news conference tomorrow to talk about various things that we're doing economically -- there'll be very major -- including, obviously, the payroll tax cut. And so we'll be meeting again tomorrow afternoon. We'll be coming back from the Senate, and we have a lot of very important meetings set up. And we'll have a press conference sometime after that, and we'll explain what we're doing on an economic standpoint and from an economic standpoint. But they will be very -- very dramatic. And we have a great economy, we have a very strong economy, but this came -- this blindsided the world. And I think we've handled it very, very well. I think they've done a great job. The people behind me have done a great job. So I will be here tomorrow afternoon to let you know about some of the economic steps we're taking, which will be major. Thank you very much. Q Mr. President have you been tested? Q Have you been tested, sir? THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr. President. Q Has he been tested? Q Has he been tested? Q Have you been tested? THE VICE PRESIDENT: I have not been tested for the coronavirus. Q Has the President? Has the President been tested? Q Sir, he’s been in contact with people who were in proximity to somebody who had the virus. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Let me be sure to get you an answer to that. I honestly don’t know the answer to the question, but we’ll refer that question, and we will get you an answer from the White House physician very quickly. Let me -- let me ask Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx to come to the podium. You all, and the American public, will have at their fingertips, very quickly, guidance that this is for every American. We're working with communities, like the Seattle area, like portions of California, New York, and Florida, that have what we call “community spread,” a concentration of coronavirus cases. But we directed our team to come up with helpful recommendations for every American, every American family, every American business and school. And if Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci step forward, they can outline that for you. DR. BIRX: Great. Thank you. Good evening. We've been -- it was good getting out last week, meeting with communities. We know that the real solutions to this is every American has a role in stopping the spread of the virus, and so we wanted to really put out guidance for every American and every community that was practical and common sense, but detailed in a way that everyone would know precisely what to do. The guidance will be around how to keep workplaces safe, how to keep school safe, how to keep the home safe, and how to keep commercial businesses safe, where people would eat or be present. The importance about this is we believe that communities are at the center of this. I came from a field where it was the communities that really solved our issues around HIV prevention. And so we're very much speaking to the communities and the American people about what can be done. All of this information came from a paper that Dr. Fauci provided from the Australians -- first, author Dalton. So you can actually look up the scientific evidence that informed each of these guidelines. But we will be providing that this evening in great detail so that every mother, father, child, son, daughter, caregiver will know precisely what to do and what to ask for. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Dr. Fauci? DR. FAUCI: Yeah. Just to reiterate what Dr. Birx said, it was as simple as that: We have been speaking about the kinds of things that would keep our citizens safe in a variety of environments. We've been speaking about on telephone calls. We've been speaking about at conferences. The CDC has been talking about this for a long time, as has Dr. Birx and I. So we thought we would put it together in a neat-form way that would be available to the general public. What Dr. Birx had mentioned is that, just the other day, I got one of many, many emails where some of my colleagues that I know from Australia actually decided they were going to write a paper on it and make a number of boxes, which was exactly saying what we had been talking about. So we came up with the idea -- it would be very good for clarity, so why don't we just put it together, edit it a little, and put it in a way that people can look: “What about the home? What about the school? What about the workplace?” These are really simple, low-tech things. There's nothing in there that's complicated. But it's just stated in a way that's clear, that people can understand. THE VICE PRESIDENT: I might ask the Surgeon General -- is there anything about the guidance you want to reflect on? SURGEON GENERAL ADAMS: Well, one thing I want folks to know is that we have been looking at the data from around the world, and we now know more than we ever have about who is at risk. Who is at risk -- and I hope you will help us communicate this to the American people -- are people over the age of 60; they're much more likely to develop complications from the coronavirus and to be hospitalized from the coronavirus. The average age of death is age 80. Now, what we also want communities to know is that if you are a child or young adult, you are much more -- you're more likely to die from the flu, if you get it, than you are to die from coronavirus. So there's something about being young that is protective. We want people to be reassured by that. We want people to know that we are really focusing in on those groups that are at highest risk for complications, and helping them understand how to be safe. And this new advice that’s going to be coming out tomorrow is designed to keep our community safe, to help keep the most vulnerable safe. And it's important to understand that even though young people aren't at risk for dying from coronavirus, they can potentially spread that to older people in the communities and people with chronic diseases. So it's important we all take precautions: washing our hands, covering our cough, keeping our distance from people who are sick, and taking the steps that will be coming out in this new guidance to help make sure we're doing everything we know possible to keep our most vulnerable protected. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Great. Well done. Thank you. And I'm going to -- I think the Surgeon General raises a very important point. You know, my mother is 88 years young. My stepfather is about the same age. This is just a really good time -- what Dr. Fauci tells us, what the experts tell us is to look after -- look after family members, loved ones who are senior citizens, and particularly those who have serious underlying health conditions. All the data, Dr. Birx confirms to us, that they -- they're the most vulnerable to serious consequences if they contract the coronavirus. But the guidance that we would -- we would ask members of the media and the American public looking on: You can go to Coronavirus.gov. This information will be posted tonight. And hopefully it will be useful, helpful, common sense for families, for schools, for businesses, and for commercial establishments that welcome the public in, just to -- just to create the kind of practices that we believe will mitigate the spread of the coronavirus across the country as a whole. But with regard to seniors, I might just ask Seema Verma to step up and speak about -- last week, at the President's direction, we raised the standards for every nursing home in America with regard to infectious disease. And we are deploying all 8,000 of our inspectors in every state, as we told the governors today, to focus exclusively on infectious disease compliance at our nursing homes. Our hearts break for the families at the Kirkland nursing home in Seattle. The loss of life has been grievous. But we are -- we are sending the message out, working with our governors to make sure our nursing homes and long-term care facilities have the additional layer of protection against the spread of the coronavirus. And maybe you can give us -- ADMINISTRATOR VERMA: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. As he said, that's exactly where our focus is: It's around infection control. And we're working with the entire healthcare industry. Today, we issued more guidance to nursing homes about really upping their screening of people that are coming into the nursing home and making sure that, you know, they're gloved and they have masks so that they -- so that we can protect people that are in the nursing homes. The other thing that we're doing is, because we know that many of our senior citizens are vulnerable, we want to make sure that they know that the Medicare program is behind them and we're here to support them. We're letting our patients know that they can get a coronavirus test and that there is no cost-sharing associated with that for our seniors on the Medicare program. And we're also letting them know that, because of the President's leadership, over a year and a half ago, he took action to actually extend more telehealth benefits to our nation's seniors. And this is a very historic change that we made under the President's leadership. And so, if they're sick and they're ill, they can call their doctor, they can Skype with their doctor, and Medicare will reimburse for those services. And we've also, in our conversations with governors today, we've talked about having telehealth services also available in the Medicaid program. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Great. Let me -- let me invite Bob Kadlec, who is Deputy Secretary of HHS, to come forward as well to fill us in on the latest on the progress on the Grand Princess -- DR. KADLEC: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. THE VICE PRESIDENT: -- that is dockside now and is going through a very careful process of having Americans and foreign nationals come off, and everyone will be tested. DR. KADLEC: Thank you very much, sir. And, yes, we began our medical operation to basically disembark those passengers. On Saturday, we placed the medical crew on that boat to augment the physicians and nurses that were already on the ship. We basically ensured that the quarantine on the boat and isolation were being enforced, and then evaluated first the children and those who are ill, identifying anyone who is severely ill, if possible. When the boat arrived on dockside today, additional medical personnel came on board and began an orderly disembarkation. Our intent is to basically disembark about half of the passengers on the boat today and the other half tomorrow. And everyone will be medically screened before they get off. If there's any question about their physical or health, they'll be screened again more additionally. And then they'll be transferred to one of the four quarantine sites in the United States: Travis Air Force Base, Miramar Naval Air Station, Lackland Air Force Base, and Dobbins Air Force Base in Georgia. The foreign passengers will be transferred to -- the Canadians will be taken back to Canada, and we're working with the United Kingdom to return their passengers back to the United Kingdom. But we're doing this all in cooperation with the great support of the State of California, the City of Oakland, and with the support of the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Coast Guard. Thank you. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Okay. Great. And on the subject of testing, we had a very good discussion today, as I mentioned, with 47 governors. And I outlined for them all of the different testing methods that are available. We have tests now in every state lab in America, but we're rapidly expanding that. And let me ask the Secretary of HHS to give us the latest on the availability of testing to the American public and at the states. SECRETARY AZAR: Great. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. So we continue with our strategic plan at HHS, across all of the components represented by many of the leaders here, which is to diagnose, to treat, to contain, to mitigate, to research, and communicate. It's what we do in a healthcare crisis situation. One element of that is the test, which, of course, CDC developed in record time after getting the genetic sequence posted from China. That then was available at CDC, and from that point on, there was no individual that a public health official needed to get tested that CDC didn't have surplus capacity to test. But we've been moving progressively to bring that test closer and closer and closer to the patient and to the bedside, and to make it as easy as possible for us to use testing, very much in line with our peer countries facing similar epidemiological circumstances. At this point, we -- as many of you who were here on Saturday for the briefing know -- we have over 1 million tests that have shipped from CDC and to private contractors that are the CDC type of test. Those are now out. And as the Vice President mentioned, every state public health lab has validated in operating those tests. In addition, hundreds of thousands of those tests are in hospitals, in private labs, in commercial labs. We now have a total of 2.1 million tests that are available, either shipped or waiting to be shipped or waiting to be ordered. We, by the end of this week, expect to be able to be producing up to 4 million tests per week in the United States. And that is on top of what the private commercial entities -- the companies you know of, like LabCorp or Quest -- using their technology, the test that they're getting out -- which is an even better experience for the patient because those were –- they are able to actually collect samples directly in doctors’ offices, have a very sophisticated collection system to their labs, again, making it a very much more seamless patient experience. They're now validated and getting up and running. And that, you'll see even more of that. So as I said, over the next week or so, you're just going to see a progressively better patient and physician and provider experience connected to diagnostic testing here in the United States. Thank you. Q So how many of the tests so far? Do you have that number? THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, let me -- questions in just a moment. SECRETARY AZAR: Yeah. THE VICE PRESIDENT: We’ll come back. We'll come back. Q Thank you. THE VICE PRESIDENT: With that, I want to -- I want to invite the Director of CDC to come forward just to give you an overview of where we are in the country with regard to cases. And then we'll take questions on any of the topics. DR. REDFIELD: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. We do continue to see an increased number in cases, again, as we said we would. As time passes, we currently have over 500 cases now in the United States, outside of the repatriation cases and the cases on the Diamond Princess. We now have cases in 35 states that have been reported and the District of Columbia. I want to reiterate what the Vice President said, despite what I just said here, is that, at the present time, the risk to the American public does remain low. We do have several community outbreaks, which we're focusing on in the Seattle area; in the Santa Clara, California area; in Westminster, in New York; and in Florida. And these are areas that we're investigating heavily to try to understand the transmission mechanisms there and begin to help these jurisdictions begin to operationalize a series of mitigation strategies to help, again, to slow and contain the outbreak. Thank you. THE VICE PRESIDENT: And let me say just before we go to questions: Coronavirus.gov. For the American public, for healthcare professionals, it is a comprehensive website. We're adding to it every day. And also, Dr. Birx -- we're working very diligently to establish a single website where we -- where people can go to track all of the cases and where they’re emerging. Questions? Please. Q Mr. Vice President, could I ask you and Secretary Mnuchin, if I could, the stock market –- THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yeah, please. Q -- a huge slide today. And people on Wall Street now talking about the possibility of a recession. Some people saying it's better than a 50/50 chance that that will happen. How worried are you that that will happen? SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Well, let me just first say, today was an unprecedented move in the oil market. So, you know, we saw a overnight reaction of over down 20 percent. And that's obviously what had a major component today on the stock market. But let me just make a couple of comments, more broadly, about the economy. First of all, we couldn't be more pleased that coming into the situation with the coronavirus, the U.S. has the most resilient economy in the world. You saw a very large economic jobs number last month, and we couldn’t be more pleased that the President’s economic programs of tax cuts, regulatory relief, and trade have put the economy in a very good position. I would also just say that I am in daily conversations with Chair Powell. We are committed, and we just had a meeting with the President and the economic team. The President is committed that whatever support we need to provide to the U.S. economy, we will use all our tools, working very closely with the regulators. The President has the bank CEOs coming in this week. We'll be talking to them about what they can do to help small businesses and companies that are impacted. So let me just again emphasize: Our primary focus is there are parts of the economy that are going to be impacted, especially workers that need to be at home -- hardworking people who are at home under quarantine or taking care of their family. We'll be working on a program to address that. We will also be working with small businesses who need liquidity through SBA programs. We're looking at alternatives at the IRS. We have large tax payments coming up of providing certain relief to companies and individuals for liquidity. So the President is 100 percent committed that we will provide whatever tools we need, that the economy will be in very good shape a year from now. This is not like the financial crisis where we don't know the end in sight. This is about providing proper tools and liquidity to get through the next few months. Q (Inaudible) the tax credit you’re looking at, sir? What are you going to propose tomorrow on Capitol Hill? THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yeah, a follow-up. SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Well, let me just say there are certain authorities that the President has that we can do on our own, and we've already catalogued those tools. We have a large group -- a sub-task force of Treasury and NEC working on this. We are also working with bipartisan leadership on a whole range of alternatives that we'll be discussing with them tomorrow. And, as you know, we had bipartisan agreement on the spending deal. We will use the same approach to work with the leadership on the House and the Senate on this. Q Mr. Vice President, you just said that you have not been tested. THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I haven’t. Q You said you don’t know if the President has been tested. But today we learned that the President has interacted with two lawmakers who have interacted with someone who is positive for coronavirus. So why not get tested? THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I just simply don't know what the White House physician has recommended to the President. But I promise you we'll get you that information. Q About when do you think you can let us know if the President has been tested? THE VICE PRESIDENT: We’ll let you know tonight. Right away. Yeah, but look, this is a -- obviously, the White House physician is -- their directive is to see to the health and wellbeing of the President of the United States, and we'll get you a very direct answer on that. Q Do you think you should be tested? THE VICE PRESIDENT: I’ve had no -- I’ve had no recommendation that I would be tested. And -- but let me -- let me just say to everyone: I really do believe that the guidance that we put out today would be very helpful and very encouraging to Americans. It was fashioned by Dr. Birx, Dr. Fauci, some of the leading experts in infectious disease in the world. And for families that are looking on tonight, to go to Coronavirus.gov. You can find information about how you can just make your home safer, your family safer, your school safer, your business safer. And we recommend that to your attention. Yes, please. Q Mr. Vice President, do you believe, and does the President believe, that what happened in the stock market today and what we're seeing among American industry -- some of which the President named today as being affected and in trouble here -- are in any way a result of this White House's reaction to the coronavirus crisis? Is this the markets and American businesses saying that you guys are not enough in charge and didn't think enough ahead? THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I have to tell you, I'm about a week and a half into being asked to lead the President's White House Coronavirus Task Force, and the men and women standing behind me, and all the men and women standing behind them, have done a remarkable job responding to this. The President's decision to suspend all travel from China -- Dr. Fauci, I think, reflected just last night, on national television, about the time that that bought us. The decisive action in declaring a public health emergency. I really do believe that the American people can see that this President is putting the health of the American people first. But make no mistake about it: As we go forward, and particularly as we have more testing available, and we have these communities that have community spread, there will be more cases. And -- but we simply ask -- we ask today for the American public to join with us in the commonsense practices that will mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, and also particularly, we're asking every American to look after our seniors who have serious underlying health issues. They are clearly the most vulnerable, and that's where the focus of our energy is today, even as we do everything that we can working with governors at every level, and state and the local public health officials to limit the spread of the virus. Q Mr. Vice President, if I could ask a question of Dr. Fauci. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Of course. Q Thank you, Mr. Vice President. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Dr. Fauci. Q You’re up, Tony. (Laughter.) More and more organizations, charities, are canceling fundraising events, other events. Is that prudent? Is that an overreaction? Do you think the President should continue with campaign rallies? And do you believe that people, even if they're healthy, should get onboard a cruise ship? DR. FAUCI: Okay, so there's multiple different questions, John. So the idea about individual entities -- governors, mayors, or whatever -- canceling activities that are not coming from a direct recommendation from the federal government, I think that they have the -- I don't “think”; I know they have the authority to do that. But what they're probably acting on is what they would consider, for their citizens, an abundance of caution. Most of the time when that happens, it usually is in an area where there is already documented community spread. And Dr. Redfield mentioned the four areas right now that are having community spread that's documented. But you know there may be -- as we know, it's a rea- -- it’s a possibility that there's community spread going on in areas in which we're not detecting it yet. And I think that's the response of the individuals, be they mayors or governors, who have you, who are doing that. So I wouldn't criticize them for that. They're using their own individual judgment. And to me, I think that that would be prudent. Q Campaign rallies? DR. FAUCI: You know, I can't comment on campaign rallies. It really depends. We are having -- as we've all said, this is something in motion. This is an evolving thing. So, not sure what we're going to be able to say at the time where you have a campaign rally. If you're talking about a campaign rally tomorrow, in a place where there is no community spread, I think the judgment to have it might be a good judgment. If you want to talk about large gatherings in a place where you have community spread, I think that’s a judgment call. And if someone decides they want to cancel it, I wouldn’t publicly criticize them. THE VICE PRESIDENT: All right. Let’s move on. Let’s move on. Go ahead, sir. Q I asked one last one about cruise ships because a lot of people are planning cruises over the spring break. THE VICE PRESIDENT: Oh, that’s -- yeah. Q Would you recommend that anybody, even a healthy person, get onboard a cruise ship? DR. FAUCI: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think if you’re a healthy, young person, that there is no reason, if you want to go on a cruise ship, to go on a cruise ship. Personally, I would never go on a cruise ship because I don't like cruises -- (laughter) -- but that's another story. But the fact -- the fact is that if you have -- if you have the conditions that I've been speaking about over and over again to this group, namely an individual who has an underlying condition, particularly an elderly person that has an underlying condition, I would recommend strongly that they do not go on a cruise ship. THE VICE PRESIDENT: And let me also say, John, I think you raise a good point. We're expecting a proposal tomorrow that DHS, the Coast Guard, all of our health officials are currently discussing with the cruise line industry. I was in Miami on Saturday. We made it very clear that we needed cruise lines to be safer; to establish and to embrace new protocols; screening onboard, screening off; new medical protocols; shipboard processes for evacuating people that may contract coronavirus or a serious illness. And I know the President was grateful that our cruise line leadership all stepped up to the table. They said they're ready to go to the next level. And so we'll -- we'll be reviewing that proposal tomorrow with the objective that apart -- apart from the Americans that Dr. Fauci just described, seniors with serious underlying conditions, we're going to work with the cruise line industry to improve the safety, improve the health environment on cruise lines, in the short term and in the long term. Yes, please. Q Last time President Trump was in this room, he told us that the number of U.S. cases was 15 and would soon go down to zero. You guys are saying today that the number is going up and it's more than 500. What is the discrepancy? And how was he so wrong on that number? THE VICE PRESIDENT: Oh, I -- look, I think what the President was referring to is that we will have people that test positive, and then they get better. President Trump wants the American people to know -- and I'm going to ask Dr. Birx to reflect on this for a moment -- the vast majority of people who contract the coronavirus will get better. And the President has just challenged our task force, as the numbers grow -- and they will -- we’ll continue to test more and more Americans. We are, as I'm standing here. That it's also important to remember that people -- the vast majority get better, completely. Some -- some large percentage have mild flu symptoms, some have serious flu symptoms. But then, of course, for the -- for the Americans you heard the Surgeon General referred to, and seniors with underlying serious health conditions Dr. Fauci referred to, we're committed to lean in and to make sure they have the support they need. But the President's focus here is just making sure people understand that, while the numbers grow, there are people that come off the list because they get better. And, Dr. Birx, did you want to reflect on what we know about the cycle of the coronavirus? DR. BIRX: Yeah, thank you. So we know the coronavirus reacts a lot like the flu in the way it spreads and in the way we prevent it. And so when we put out the guidelines to the American people, they will reinforce the guidelines, and we hope the number of flu cases go down too, because people will really be situat- -- what we call “situational awareness.” I did want to add one piece to our cautions about people with preexisting conditions. We also know that there are children with preexisting conditions, and we know that there are individuals that are undergoing chemotherapy for their treatment of cancer. For those individuals, if they have what we call a “decreased number of white cells” -- and they will have that discussions with the doctors -- they are given often a sheet of paper that really describes how they need to protect themselves and how their family needs to protect them. So I want to make sure that we understand: Yes, we're concerned about the elderly, we're concerned about others with preexisting condition, but we're also concerned about anybody who may be in an immuno- -- what we call an immunodeficiency state, having less white cells and less able to combat any virus. We want to protect all of them from the flu, and we want to protect all of them from coronavirus. And that's why these guidelines are particularly important. THE VICE PRESIDENT: It really is -- it really is important, I think -- and I want to ask all of the journalists in the room: Do what you can to distribute this information -- Coronavirus.gov -- because of exactly the reason that Dr. Birx just said so well: that we want to make sure that families have the tools, businesses have the tools, even in areas where we don't have a significant outbreak of the coronavirus -- we want to make sure that the American people have the tools to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, particularly with regard to the most vulnerable. Q Yes, Mr. Vice President, earlier, you said you’d tell us how many Americans have already been tested. And as a follow-up to a question that was asked earlier, are the President's tweets hurting your efforts at all? Because he's accused the Democrats and some of the members of the press of making more of this than he says it is. He's made lighter of it than you all have here. So, has his tweets hurt you? And you please tell us how many Americans have been tested? THE VICE PRESIDENT: I’m happy to do that. Well, the President’s leadership has made the difference here. I heard it again today from 47 governors. Governor Larry Hogan joined me in the Situation Room. He’s the chairman of the National Governors Association. I think every American would be inspired if you could see the way, under the President’s leadership and in cooperation with governors in every state and every territory, we literally are working seamlessly on behalf of the health of the American people. I’m going to invite the Secretary of HHS to come up and speak about how the number of tests that have been done, and where we are -- the tests that are available he's addressed, but in terms of those that have been conducted. SECRETARY AZAR: So we've told you we'll tell you what we know and what we don't know. Okay? Q That’ll work. SECRETARY AZAR: So there are different types of tests that get sent out. The CDC’s tests that CDC is sending out -- that's that 70- -- enough to test 75,000 people that was sent out last week -- those go to public health labs, about 80 labs in the United States -- one in each state, at least. Those report results back in to the CDC, because they're part of the public health network. The larger quantity of tests that shipped -- about 900,000 of the tests that shipped by this weekend, and then so many of the remainder of that two-point- -- total 2.1 million tests, those go to hospitals, private labs, others for testing. They don't currently have to report to us that they've conducted a test or what the result of that test is. The CDC is actively working right now to build that IT connectivity with them so we can gather that information. So, right now, I could not give you a number of how many Americans have received a test because many will have received a test through hospitals or non-public health labs. And so, let's -- let's work -- we're getting the system -- the IT system up through CDC. We want to give you accurate information as we go. Dr. Redfield, is that fair? THE VICE PRESIDENT: Let me, if I may -- if I may on one: Thank you all for being here. We will be back here tomorrow, and we'll continue to bring the latest information forward to the American people. Again, let me encourage all of you here, and everyone looking on around the country, to go to Coronavirus.gov. You get really useful, practical, commonsense recommendations about how to make your home safer, how to make your school safer, how to make your business and any enterprise out there safer. These are -- these are practical recommendations from the best experts in America, and we commend them to your attention. But let me also just have a word of encouragement to everyone. I want to say, again: All of our medical experts, apart from the areas where we have community spread and we're focusing resource, the risk of contracting the coronavirus, for the average American, remains low. It will remain that way more so if all of us continue to practice commonsense habits in our home, in our businesses, in our schools, and our public institutions. And so it's important to remember what President Trump said: “We're all in this together.” It's not just going to be a whole-of-government approach. It's a whole-of-America approach. And, together, we'll get through the coronavirus. Again, details on all the latest information: Coronavirus.gov. Thank you. |
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP, VICE PRESIDENT PENCE, AND MEMBERS OF THE WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE IN PRESS BRIEFING
Monday, March 9, 2020
1600 Daily The White House • March 9, 2020 White House statement: President Trump Takes Action on Healthcare
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Statement from the Press Secretary
|
ON-THE-RECORD PRESS CALL BY SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS ON PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP’S LATEST ACTION TO IMPROVE AMERICAN HEALTHCARE
Office of the Press Secretary
|
ON-THE-RECORD PRESS CALL BY SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS ON PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP’S LATEST ACTION TO IMPROVE AMERICAN HEALTHCARE Via Teleconference
9:05 A.M. EST
MR. CANTRELL: Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today’s briefing by senior administration officials on President Trump’s latest action to improve American healthcare. Today’s briefing will be conducted by Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar; Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Seema Verma; National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Don Rucker; Director of the Domestic Policy Council here at the White House, Joe Grogan; and Special Assistant to the President for Innovation Policy and Initiatives, Matthew Lira. Both opening remarks and the question-and-answer portion to follow will be entirely on the record. All information is embargoed until the conclusion of the call. And, with that, I’m happy to introduce DPC Director, Joe Grogan. MR. GROGAN: Thank you, Austin. Again, my name is Joe Grogan, Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council. And, this morning, we’re going to be talking about the culmination of a tremendous amount of work on the part of the Department of Health and Human Services, a number of operating divisions within that department, and the White House, to deliver on interoperability for electronic health records. The Trump administration has consistently had a broad view of what needs to be fixed in healthcare and not just focusing on the individual market. The effort on interoperability is another in a long list of goals to sort out problems that this administration, that this President inherited from previous administrations. Let’s not forget that $36 billion were spent at the beginning of the Obama administration to get Americans to use electronic health records, and this led to a Tower of Babylon inability for physicians, hospitals, medical providers, systems to talk to one another. It’s led to a tremendous amount of frustration on the part of medical professionals and patients as physicians, interacting with patients, oftentimes spend more time looking at computer screens than they do into the eyes of the people they’re trying to heal. The President, since he’s taken office, has eliminated the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate penalty, the Cadillac tax, the health insurance tax, and the medical device tax. Additionally, the double digits and the increases in premiums has stabilized, and we now have premium stability in the individual market. He’s opened up opportunities for people to buy more inexpensive plans, allowed businesses to band together in association health plans, and pushed through the health reimbursement arrangements, which will lead to a vast increase of the number of the people on the individual market without an increase in taxpayer dollars. He has spearheaded initiatives to bring greater options to those suffering from kidney disease. He’s led the battle against the opioid crisis, leading to a historic marker -- the first drop in opioid deaths in nearly two decades. He signed a 1-billion-dollar increase in Alzheimer’s research, launched an initiative to end the transmission of HIV/AIDS in America in the next 10 years. He signed Right to Try legislation. We’re working to revive the Stark and Anti-Kickback rules, which also has taken a tremendous amount of work over many years. And, of course, he’s focused on improving veterans’ healthcare, firing employees who are not delivering for our veterans, eliminating wait times. And we now have the highest level of favorability for veterans health on record. His budget demonstrated his commitment to delivering on his vision for a healthy America, with an increase in funding and a fundamental revamp of how we address mental disease in this country. We’re improving maternal health, access to rural healthcare, and prioritizing critical health research while supporting innovation. With that, there are a number of speakers, so I’m going to turn it over. But, again, to reiterate, we have spent a lot of time in this administration confronting problems that other administrations have ignored, and fixing problems that we’ve inherited with a very broad view on how to fix healthcare in America. With that, I’ll give my time. SECRETARY AZAR: Thank you, everyone. This is Secretary Azar. Appreciate you joining us for this important announcement. This announcement is a significant piece of working towards President Trump’s healthcare vision: an affordable, patient-centric system that puts you in control and treats you like a person, not a number. The driving force behind the President’s healthcare work is to protect what works and make it better. In more tangible terms, here’s what that means: We’re going to protect your ability to choose the insurance plans and providers that work for you. We’re going to protect what Americans like about that experience, but deliver that experience with lower costs, less paperwork, more options, and more control. The final rules we’re announcing today will help deliver on all four of those goals. Today, after tens of billions of dollars invested in digitizing health records, America’s health records system remains balkanized and nearly inacceptable to the patient. We talk a lot about how we love having a choice of doctors, but how can you shop for better options if you can’t practically bring your records with you? Today, Americans’ health records are shackled by a broken system, which means their options are limited too. Many Americans know how frustrating health records can be today. I'm the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and even I have struggled to get my health records electronically. Frankly, the stories we heard in developing the interoperability rules were even more frustrating than we expected. In response to our draft rule, we heard from patients, whose experiences with the broken status quo were not only maddening, they were harmful to their health. We heard about one woman who was on a trip when she developed a kidney stone for which she needed emergency surgery. But first she had to obtain her records from her hometown urologist who had to fax them and mail CDs, delaying her surgery for four days. We've heard from patients who are working to get second opinions and more options for challenging cases of cancer or their children with rare diseases, who have to devote huge amounts of their precious energies to pressing doctors for CDs and paper records of their health data. We heard from a physician who helps coordinate care for his 93-year-old mother who lives 200 miles away and visits as many as six different practices in a given year, which are on a variety of EHR -- electronic health record -- systems. None of those systems keeps track of a single unified list of medications, which of course is a key piece of his mother getting the care she needs. So how are we going to fix this? Simply put, healthcare providers will be required to provide easy digital access to your records at no cost. Through what are known as application programming interfaces, or APIs, you will be able to use a smartphone app to have all your health records and your health claims data at hand for use by you and your doctors. Today, all that time patients are spending to assemble hard copies of their records and all that time providers are taking, sending faxes and CDs, can be replaced with the work of an app that seamlessly gathers and retains all that information. We believe that's just the beginning. We hope to see a whole ecosystem of condition- or disease-specific apps to help patients monitor and improve their health in real time, in part by using data made available from their EHR via an API. We have apps today that can help patients monitor one particular data point, like glucose levels, but they can't easily help the patient understand their whole health picture. And that's what truly puts the patient in control. This will be accomplished by the Cures Act final rule from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, and an interoperability rule unleashing claims data, from CMS. I also want to emphasize that we're taking these actions while maintaining and strengthening patient privacy protections. Patient privacy should never stand in the way of patient control. The wonky term for what we're requiring is “interoperability.” Practically, from the patient's perspective, these rules mean access and portability. You will have access to your records, and your records will be portable from doctor to doctor. Providing patients with access to their data makes it much easier for them to control their own care, and we believe there will be opportunities for other data to be incorporated in the apps patients will use alongside. That's where President Trump's bold actions on price transparency and quality are going to be essential too. Today's announcement also works to empower your doctors to better coordinate your care, including by requiring that providers send notifications to other relevant providers when you're admitted, transferred, or discharged from a provider. These actions by President Trump are a bold, new way of thinking about government in healthcare. We're laying down simple rules of the road that will put the patient in control and empower providers to coordinate and pay for outcomes. Altogether, these steps will dramatically improve American patients’ experience in healthcare. They'll deliver the American patients lower costs, less paperwork, more options, and more control. On this day, I'd especially like to commend Administrator Seema Verma; Dr. Don Rucker, the head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT; and Will Brady, Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of HHS. This is truly a major milestone in a long journey begun 15 years ago by my predecessor, Secretary Mike Leavitt. Truly a historic day in healthcare. With that, I want to hand things over to Dr. Rucker to explain more about ONC's rule and the background behind it. DR. RUCKER: All right. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. First of all, folks, sorry we can't see you in Orlando, which was our original plan here. But nonetheless, as Secretary Azar has just said, we are announcing what in my 30-plus-year career in healthcare IT is, I think, an unprecedented rule, allowing safe and secure access of health information, giving back to patients. Our rule implements the clinical interoperability provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act. And as CMS Administrator Verma will tell you in a moment, Americans will now have electronic access to their health information on their smartphone, if they choose. Our rule requires hospitals and doctors to provide software access points -- endpoints, if you will -- to their electronic medical record databases so that patients can download these records to their smartphones. This download is entirely at the patient's choice. It is done using modern security provisions and clear communications and choice about privacy. What we want to do here, ultimately, is we're finalizing the policies that we believe will allow patients the ability to manage their healthcare the same way they manage their finances or the travel or other parts of their life on their smartphone. We believe that by giving patients control of the health information -- and it's not just access to the data, it's computable control of the healthcare information -- we're going to see a growth in patient-facing healthcare IT markets from an entirely new app ecosystem that's going to be fueled by transparency about both product and price. We think this health app economy is going to have new services, and we see the smartphone not just as a smartphone, but as a tool to connect other devices to it -- Internet of things type of devices: As the Secretary mentioned, glucometers, blood pressure cuffs, digital scales, peak flow meters, heart rate monitors. The technology here that we're unleashing is going to democratize healthcare in, I think, powerful ways. How are we doing this? The Cures Act has two broad provisions that we're implementing here. One is a requirement about application programming interfaces without special effort, and the second is mandating that patients get their information. So the Cures Act defines a concept known as “information blocking” as practices that interfere with the access, exchange, or use of electronic health information. The Act requires entities controlling this information to share it with patients and third-party apps the patient chooses, as opposed to apps that are purely under the provider control. Our rule identifies and finalizes the reasonable and necessary activities that do not constitute information blocking, while establishing new rules to prevent information-blocking practices by healthcare providers, developers of certified health IT health information exchanges networks, as required by the Cures Act. The rule also updates certification requirements for health IT developers so that doctors and nurses who are using this health IT are able, if there are safety or usability issues, to discuss those without having to be bound by what has historically been called "gag clauses." Really, again, the theme here is transparency for providers and the American public. How are we doing this with the data? We have defined the U.S. Core Data for interoperability. That includes clinical notes, includes things like allergies and medicine. These are standardized sets of data classes and data elements with the most modern and powerful of data standards to help improve this flow of information. There's a lot more in the rule in making this all happen to start getting us to compare costs and quality and start shopping for care. And so, thank you for joining us this morning. And I'd like to pass the phone over to CMS Administrator Seema Verma to talk about the CMS rule that is happening at the same time. ADMINISTRATOR VERMA: Thank you, Don, and thank you for joining the call. I'd like to begin by sending our thoughts and prayers to everyone that's affected by the coronavirus, especially those who are dealing with the tragic loss of loved ones. All Americans who are anxiously watching this situation need to know that their government is working around the clock to keep them safe. As you know, we are announcing a major policy change that promises to substantially increase the quality of care of our healthcare system, delivers in times of crisis and always. I'd like to use this time to explain how the CMS rule works, as well as where it fits into our broader efforts to liberate data, lower costs, and improve Americans' healthcare. This particular fix has been a long time coming. In today's digital age, the vast majority of patients remain unable to obtain easy access to their complete data. Our healthcare system remains needlessly expensive and inefficient, as repeat tests drive up costs and perhaps, most importantly, doctors are forced to provide care with an incomplete clinical picture. Especially at a time when the healthcare system could be under stress with the handling of the COVID virus, the urgent need for coordinated, integrated care could not be clearer. In a healthcare system characterized by the easy and seamless flow of information, one in which a patient's own data follows them to the provider they choose, care for patients would be drastically improved. Think of the passengers on the cruise ship, many of whom are seniors -- they may be unaware of the names of all of their prescriptions or the dosage amount -- having simply taken what they needed for the journey. Under this system envisioned by these rules, they could have access to this critical information and share it with their caregivers. When the Trump administration came into office, we recognized that something needed to change. Our fragmented system had calcified into a status quo that is profitable for some but doesn't put patients first. So, in 2018, at the HIMSS Conference, Jared Kushner and myself and others launched the My Healthy Data Initiative to reduce costs and improve care by getting medical record data into the hands of patients and their providers. We started by leaving no room for doubt. EHR vendors don't own data; patients do. We overhauled our policies to focus on the electronic exchange of health information between healthcare providers and patients. And now, under the Trump administration, hospitals are penalized, and clinicians lose their incentive payments if they don't give patients the health data they need to coordinate their care. And then we got our own house in order. CMS launched Blue Button 2.0, Medicare’s tool that links Medicare claims data to apps on beneficiaries’ phone or other devices. This allows them to have their data at their fingertips and share it with their caregivers. With thousands of developers in the Blue Button development sandbox and 55 apps now available, Blue Button is getting thousands of Medicare beneficiaries secure access to their health data with the click of a button. In our most recent Medicare open enrollment period, we saw a large increase in the number of beneficiaries using this newfound access to make informed plan choices. Blue Button was the turning point, not only because of the success it had in its own right, but because of how it became the prototype for today's final rule, which has implications for the entire healthcare industry. The personal health records rule, also known as the patient access rule, goes where prior administrations have feared to tread: It finally engages as health insurance plans. Health plans have significant data on the people they serve, but earlier policies never took that into account. Our policies now require those payers to step up to the plate and share that wealth of data directly with patients. Specifically, the rule requires, starting in 2021, that all health plans doing business in Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP, and the federal exchanges, share health data with their patients through a secure standards-based API, which represents the link between the data on various systems and consumers’ phones. This is where ONC's work comes in, which essentially finalizes the standard that makes that link possible. In effect, the personal health records rule essentially requires that all health plans doing business with the federal government delivers something like Blue Button 2.0 and its private and secure data sharing to the 85 million patients in CMS-regulated health plans. And the rule goes further: By leveraging plans' unique positioning to support patients and providers alike with all the data they have to offer, plans will be required, starting in 2022, to share a patient's health information with each other at the patient's request. This allows patients to take their data with them when they move from one plan to another and create a cumulative health record as they go. The rule also requires plans to make their provider directory publicly accessible through a provider directory API, starting in 2021. This will allow innovative third parties to design apps that will help patients evaluate which plan networks are right for them and potentially avoid surprise billing by having a clearer picture of which clinicians are in network. Also, effective six months from today, we are changing the conditions of participation for hospitals to ensure Medicare and Medicaid participating hospitals are supporting care coordination for patients by sending admission, discharge, and transfer notifications so patients receive a timelier follow-up, supporting better care and better health outcomes. In sum, the Trump administration is pushing the healthcare system forward. We are breaking down barriers to a seamless data-driven healthcare system. The result of these two rules will be a more intuitive and convenient experience for American patients, better access to data, leading to better research for new treatments and full clinical pictures for doctors -- allowing them to reduce errors that decrease quality and duplications at increased costs. I'd like to pause to emphasize a crucial point: Privacy and security are paramount. Not a day went by when these rules were in development that we did not consider how to balance the necessity of patients having easy access to their own data with the need for privacy and security. These two rules ensure plans and developers have the technical tools they need to build secure APIs and apps. Patients, providers, and plans alike have a responsibility to take an active role in safeguarding patient data. And we are working with plans to educate patients about what they should look for in terms of privacy when they are selecting an app so they have the tools and the information they need. I want to close by rallying America's developers. These rules represent an invitation to deliver new and innovative tools for patients to drive higher quality, lower costs, and a more efficient healthcare system in America. Thank you. MR. LIRA: Hello, everyone. This is Matt Lira with the White House Office of American Innovation. I want to be brief, but I will provide some additional narrative context for how we got to this announcement. Three years ago, at the President's direction, Jared Kushner and Chris Liddell began hosting a series of listening sessions, both at the White House and around the country. We pulled together executives from the healthcare sector and other sectors of our economy: clinicians, entrepreneurs, researchers, and, most importantly, patients. And we asked them what are the healthcare priorities and opportunities that are on their minds. Among the many parts of feedback that we got, we consistently heard about the need for better patient access and control over their own healthcare records. Based on this extensive feedback, Jared Kushner, Seema Verma, and Dr. Rucker, and HHS began an all-hands-on-deck effort to tackle this problem. It took multiple years. We issued the rules over one year ago for public comment. And the central point there is, both before and after we've taken this action, it's been based on listening, engagement with all healthcare stakeholders. And in the best traditions of the policy efforts of this administration, it's a high-impact reform that may not always grab everyday headlines but that is going to dramatically improve the quality of care for Americans across this country. MR. CANTRELL: Thank you, Matt. And thank you, everyone. Operator, we will now take some questions. Q Good morning. This is Andrew Feinberg with Breakfast Media. Thanks for doing this call. Administrator Verma and Secretary Azar, you’re both on the coronavirus task force, doing this call this morning. The President, this morning, has tweeted about blaming the media for inflaming the coronavirus situation, Senator Schumer’s comments on two Supreme Court Justices last week; a couple of tweets on the Democratic primary and Bernie Sanders; as well as tweets on the deep state and fake news. He seems to be focused on those things, and you guys are introducing this move, which doesn’t take effect until 2022. How should Americans have any confidence that your administration is really focusing on this outbreak, which is quickly spiraling into a pandemic, if you guys are doing this and the President is off tweeting in Florida and -- instead of getting ahead of this? MR. CANTRELL: Yes, sir. Thank you for your commentary and question. This is a call about interoperability, and we’re happy to take any more questions we have about interoperability this morning. Next caller. Q This is Mohana from Politico. I wanted to know what changes you might have made from the first drafts that were published last year. I’m wondering if there were any updates with regard to privacy policy. DR. RUCKER: Yes, we go about 2,000 -- this is Don Rucker of ONC. We got about 2,000 comments. And, obviously, as Administrator Verma mentioned, we’re quite concerned about privacy. This has been a major part of our process here. What we’ve done -- without getting into the specifics of the technical -- is we’ve bound into the patient authentication process the ability of providers to give notice and to let patients know what they’re consenting to, to do that in a very deliberate, straightforward way. So that is not snuck in on the side, but it is absolutely central to the way that patients allow an app to get access to their information. We’ve also empowered providers to communicate the privacy issues in that process. We’re using the same secure API technology that is, for example, used in the banking app on your smartphone. So I think we’ve put in some powerful protections here to make this a reality for patients to get control of their healthcare. ADIMINISTRATOR VERMA: I think from the CMS side, in terms of the changes from their proposed rule to now, we didn't finalize the requirements around trusted exchange networks and participation in that. And we also strengthened the privacy and security components of the rule, specifically requiring attestation around privacy for app developers. Q Hi, Joyce Frieden from MedPage Today. I wondered if you could talk about a timeline for what providers can expect in terms of when they -- for example, when a doctor's office will know that they have to be required to provide this. And also, if there are any penalties for them not meeting that deadline. DR. RUCKER: Yes, Don Rucker again. So the rule will start with a limited set of data. We got a lot of feedback from the provider community to start two years from when the rule is in the Federal Register -- so, next week. So two years downstream from that, with the application programming interfaces allowing patients to get just the U.S. Core Data. There are some provisions, another year after that, for other data. We've worked extensively with software developers. Most of the large software developers actually already have built the APIs and versions of the APIs that we are talking about in this rule. The core part of what we wanted to do is to make this as simple and hassle-free for providers. These are automated endpoints. ADMINISTRATOR VERMA: The other thing I want to add is that, in 2018, CMS changed the entire Meaningful Use program. We overhauled that and we now call it “promoting interoperability.” And so, in 2018, we've changed the rules around that. So, specifically, hospitals are penalized if they are not sharing patient data with their clients. So that's already into effect. And then also, the MACRA program or the MIPS incentive program, all of those incentives are tied to doctors sharing data with their patients. Also, as a requirement -- they’re required to upgrade the software that they were using so that it did have APIs. And that already went into effect in 2019. That's already in effect today. Q Hi all. This is Blake Burman at Fox Business. I know you want to keep it on the topic at hand, but, Joe, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you: The market is down 1,900 points right now, down 7 percent. You guys have been -- the administration has been talking about economic stimulus measures. I'm curious, will you mention -- will you talk at all about what may or may not have occurred over the weekend, what you think people need to know right now, what traders need to know right now, et cetera? There's a massive sell-off on the street. Thank you. SECRETARY AZAR: This is Secretary Azar. Let me go ahead and address that. So the Vice President is leading a whole-of -government approach. We've been very transparent with daily media briefings on all the steps that we're taking. We've taken historic actions to try to prevent the -- to slow the spread of the disease into the United States through restrictions on travel and travel advisories. We've been making historic advances on therapeutic development as well as vaccine development. We've been advancing on acquiring additional PPE -- or personal protective equipment -- for healthcare workers. We had our healthcare providers alerted from day one on this to ensure that our entire public health system and medical professionals were on the alert. And that's how we identified our first cases in this. We've now got over 2 million tests that have been -- that have been manufactured. And over a million of those, as of Saturday, have shipped out to public health labs as well as to hospitals, as well as other labs, with availability. We have unleashed, with regulatory reform, our private-sector lab companies so that they can form their own developed tests with direct access into physician offices through their systems. We are working aggressively on community mitigation efforts in place with Santa Clara County, with Seattle, working with Florida, and New York State, New York City, as they work to contain and mitigate the impacts of cluster outbreaks that they've had in community spreading that’s happened in the United States. We've secured within record time an $8.3 billion emergency supplemental that allows us to advance vaccine therapeutic CPE production, as well as to support state and local public health departments that need to be on the front lines of this to reimburse them and to allow them to add staffing to that. So this whole of government is enacting the action plans for Preparedness and Response that have been in place since the President put them in in 2017. The American people -- this is a serious issue. This is a very serious public health issue. It's a serious issue globally. The risk to any individual American generally remains low, but we've been very candid that for individuals, in particular the older individuals and in particular those with various elements of medical fragility, to take special precautions. We've been clear about that over the weekend. We've also put out guidance around cruise ships. And we're dealing right now with bringing in individuals off of cruise ships. So it’s been a very aggressive whole-of-government approach at the state, local, and the federal level. And the notion that we can't do our day jobs and work on this very serious issue is absurd. We're taking COVID-19 incredibly seriously, and our teams, our public health agencies, are actively working as we sit here and also try to reform the entire healthcare system. ADMINISTRATOR VERMA: And just to add to that, I think that, you know, as we are working through this whole-of-government approach to responding to the virus, the issues around interoperability are so critical. Patients have to have access to their health care data. You know, imagine the healthcare system stressed by dealing with coronavirus. And when patients are coming into the hospital, it helps the doctors and it helps the patients if they have complete medical records. And when they're leaving the hospital, to be able to have all that data available to them when they go back to their doctors to understand what happened in the hospital, it just makes the system work better. Q Hi, this is Mike Brady calling from Modern Healthcare. I was wondering, on the condition of participation for all Medicare and Medicaid participating hospitals, is it a requirement to send electronic notifications to another healthcare facility or community provider? Can you talk a little bit more about the implementation of that and what hospitals can expect in terms of what those expectations will be? ADMINISTRATOR VERMA: Yeah, I mean, this goes into effect in six months. And, essentially, the idea here is they have to provide electronic notification of the discharge. All of the information related to that hospital stay has to be given to the patient and to their providers. So, it's really an effort to increase coordination of care to provide a seamless patient experience so that we don't have drops-offs and gaps when people leave the hospital until they get their follow-up care. MR. CANTRELL: All right. Thank you, everyone. This will conclude our call. Again, both opening remarks and the question-and-answer portion were on the record. As always, direct all further questions to the White House Press Office. Thank you, everyone, for joining this morning. END 9:41 A.M. EST |
West Wing Reads Trump Administration Takes Action on Healthcare
|
The GoldFish Report No. 453 - Political Theater: Perfect Choreography
The GoldFIsh Report No 453 YouTube Video Link
The GoldFish Report No. 453 BitChute Video Link
On The GoldFish Report No. 453- Jim and Louisa report on the latest theatrics in politics including Biden's cognitive slippage, Tulsi Gabbard, Bernie Sanders and POTUS news. Also Jim reviews his evidence on JFK Assassination and much more. Its Fidler time!
To receive our Reports you can subscribe to our BITCHUTE Channel at https://www.bitchute.com/profile/qrAL... and to become a Patron of The GoldFish Report you can go to our Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/user?u=10007100 .
You can also subscribe to our "NEW" YouTube channel at, and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO-A
Follow us on Twitter at @ReportGoldfish, www.thegoldfishreport.wordpress.com you can also follow us and like us on our 24/7 research news page at www.facebook.com/thegoldfishreport and to help support these and other programs please visit www.thegoldfishreport.com to make a donation. Thank you for your support and Thank you for viewing.
Visit our NEW Vimeo on Demand to view our Educational Country Roads Reports at this link here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thegoldfis...
To View our NEW Educational Bullet Points Reports use this link here:
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/174952
For viewer support of The GoldFish Report's Project "The Road to the White House", Please donate at www.thegoldfishreport.com at out PayPal or become a patron at https://www.patreon.com/user?u=10007100.
To View The GoldFish Report's POTUS Reports, you can visit our BitChute page or view the unlisted report on YouTube from our POTUS Report page on our website at www.thegoldfishreport.com
DISCLAIMER
The following videos were created for educational purposes only. The content of this material strictly for research purposes, and readily available to the general public via the Internet. Viewing of the GoldFish Reports acknowledges that senders and recipients hereby agree to this disclaimer, thus releasing the source author from any and all personal liability. Also, individuals who alter or deviate from this source material, may be exposing themselves to the full extent of law.
THE OPINIONS AND HYPOTHESES OF OUR GUESTS AND GUEST CO-HOSTS DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GOLDFISH REPORT POTUS UPDATE. AN OPINION AND HYPOTHESIS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITH NEWLY PRESENTED RESEARCH AND EVIDENCE. THE GOLDFISH REPORT POTUS REPORT IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR INFORMATION THAT MAY BE UNKNOWINGLY INACCURATE, ALTHOUGH WE DO OUR BEST TO PRESENT FACTS, OUR GOAL IS TO HAVE THE CONVERSATION ABOUT DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES OF WORLD EVENTS AND HOW THOSE MAKING THE DECISIONS MAY IMPACT OUR LIVES. VIEWER DISCERNMENT IS ADVISED.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of criminal justice, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Copyright 2020 The GoldFish Report. All rights Reserved.
First Lady Melania Trump to Deliver Remarks at the National PTA Legislative Conference
|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)