Congress Provides Additional Health Care Funding and Replenishes Small Business Loan Program

President Trump has signed the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act. This legislation is the fourth bill that Congress has passed to provide critical assistance to help America respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure the longer-term financial stability for individuals, employers, and hospitals.

Below are some of the key highlights of the legislation.

Key Health Care Provisions

• $75 billion to reimburse hospitals and health care providers for health care related expenses or lost revenues due to COVID-19.
• $25 billion to increase testing for COVID-19, including $600 million for Community Health Centers and $225 million for Rural Health Clinics to support testing as well as up to $1 billion to cover the cost of testing the uninsured.
• A requirement that U.S. Department of Health and Human Services submit two reports on the number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths related to COVID-19, including de-identified data disaggregated by race, ethnicity, age, sex, and geographic region, and other relevant factors of individuals tested for or diagnosed with COVID-19.

Relief for Small Businesses, Independent Contractors and Individual

• $310 billion in additional funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which provides federally guaranteed loans of up to $10 million for small employers with 500 or fewer employees, sole proprietors, or independent contractors, and eligible self-employed individuals. These loans will be fully forgiven if all employees are kept on payroll for 8 weeks, and the funds are used to cover payroll, mortgage, rent, and utility payments, as well as other debt obligations.
• PPP loans for small, rural, and minority-owned businesses are specifically targeted for relief with $60 billion of the PPP reserved for small and medium-sized financial institutions.
• $60 billion in additional funding for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, which provides operational liquidity for small employers with 500 or fewer employees, sole proprietors, or independent contractors, and eligible self-employed individuals. Eligible applicants can receive an immediate EIDL Emergency Advance of up to $10,000, which does not have to be repaid.

Questions?

For questions on health care provisions, contact Jerry White, ASHA’s director of federal affairs for health care, at jwhite@asha.org. For questions related to small business provisions, please contact Eric Masten, ASHA’s director of federal affairs for education, at emasten@asha.org.

Visit ASHA’s COVID-19 Updates page for additional resources, including small business relief.