Pennsylvania Sens. Casey, Toomey tackle coronavirus from different angles
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Pennsylvania Sens. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, and Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley, are tackling the coronavirus from distinctly different angles as Congress struggles to respond to the pandemic that has claimed more than 70,000 lives in the United States.
Casey said he will introduce a bill this week creating a GI Bill-type benefit for health care workers on the front line of the battle against covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Echoing threats President Trump has voiced in recent days, Toomey is focusing on punishing the Chinese government for concealing and downplaying information about the lethal virus that originated in Wuhan, located in China’s Hubei province. He is co-sponsoring a bill to authorize visa bans and domestic asset freezes against foreign officials for the “deliberate concealment or distortion of information about the covid-19 pandemic.”
Toomey said he’ll join Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., in the Li Wenliang Global Public Health Accountability Act, a bill named for the Chinese doctor who succumbed to covid-19 after warning the world of the looming threat posed by the virus that originated in Wuhan.
The proposals are in line with a growing partisan divide in a Congress that acted swiftly to pass four bills to provide emergency aid to workers, businesses, hospitals and schools as state after state issued stay-at-home orders to limit the spread of covid-19.
On Tuesday, Casey said the narrative has been shifting in recent days.
“It’s still very early, but some of these things that involve new initiatives are starting to run into debate in Washington where some have said, ‘We’ve done four bills and when you add up four bills it’s roughly $3 trillion, and we shouldn’t do more.’ That’s one narrative that is starting, but I think there is a lot more we should do,” he said.
Citing the original GI Bill that underwrote college tuition and mortgages for World War II veterans, Casey said the U.S. needs to do something similar to thank health care workers who put their lives on the line.
Specifically, he wants to make benefits available to EMS workers, those who provide health care and patient care in hospitals, including janitorial, food service and laundry workers, as well those serving in doctors’ offices, clinics, home health care and nursing homes. Workers in behavioral health would also be included.
Casey could provide no specific price tag or eligibility numbers beyond estimating tens of millions ultimately could qualify for the benefit. He said the measure would provide about $9,970 year— the average price tag of in-state tuition at public colleges— for up to four years. The benefit could be used to pay off existing student debt, or for college tuition, trade schools, apprenticeships, a child’s education or mortgages, or to add to retirement savings.
He likened their work to that of soldiers in wartime.
“It’s not a shooting war. … It’s a war against this virus and these front-line health care workers are soldiers on a battlefield,” Casey said. “The ultimate threat to them is the threat against their lives, which we’ve seen play out where many deaths have occurred in the ranks of front line health care workers.”
Toomey said punishing those who failed to warn the world of the highly contagious coronavirus is a priority.
“The Chinese Communist Party should have responded to the outbreak of covid-19 with transparency. Instead, the CCP has consistently lied, spread disinformation and withheld important facts and data about covid-19, contributing to the virus’ spread and severity. This sanctions bill would allow the United States to hold accountable members of the CCP who deliberately lied and silenced doctors on the ground in Wuhan,” Toomey said.