Trump Looks at Paying Hospitals Directly for Treating Uninsured Coronavirus Patients

From the story:  “We are going to try to get them a cash payment because just opening it up doesn’t help as much,” Trump said during the White House press briefing. Vice President Mike Pence said the administration was considering directing some of the $100 billion allocated to hospitals as part of the economic recovery package recently signed by the president to pay hospitals for any coronavirus treatment for people without insurance” (Washington Examiner).  From New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Anderson Cooper: “Today, the President was very helpful, actually converting our Javits Center, which has 2,500 beds, into a Covid facility. I called him this morning, he got it done by the afternoon” (Twitter).  The U.S. is flying medical equipment in on cargo planes (Politico). AEI Resident Fellow Andy Smarick looks at the difficult tradeoff of temporarily allowing the federal government more power (The Dispatch). Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said those personal checks will go out to Americans within two weeks (Washington Times).