Situation Report | July 13, 2020
In a letter to the editor published by the New York Times last week, HCA responded to an op-ed by E. Tammy Kim highlighting a number of vulnerabilities faced by home health aides in the COVID-19 pandemic — “a global health crisis that has laid bare systemic government gaps,” writes HCA President Al Cardillo in the letter.
Cardillo used the occasion to write about HCA-sought remedies, including “funding … urgently needed for wages that match the courage of caregivers at a time when Medicaid rates fall short of this obligation, with warnings of still further state budget cuts to come.”
He also noted the home care provider community’s voluntary effort to distribute PPE for peer home care providers and workers (as extensively covered in recent HCA communications), noting the need for “a dedicated collective effort by government, payers and emergency management … to further provide these most essential protections.”