House Republicans blocked Democrats’ attempt to meet President Donald Trump’s demand to pay most Americans $2,000 to help weather the coronavirus pandemic.
Republicans objected to the bill House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer sought to pass by unanimous consent Thursday to replace the $600 payments in the latest pandemic relief legislation with the $2,000 payments.
Mark Segal, PhD, is principal at Digital Health Policy Advisors, a digital health policy consultancy. He provides strategic counsel to clients on such issues as interoperability policy, value-based payment programs, and health IT regulation and patient safety. Until December 2017, Mark was vice president of government and industry affairs for GE Healthcare Digital. He has provided advice to ONC and CMS and has been active as a leader and expert participant in numerous health IT-related organizations and efforts addressing critical policy issues
Diane Robinette is CEO of Incisive Software, a leading provider of spreadsheet risk intelligence solution. She has more than 20 years of experience in strategic planning, marketing, product management, business operations and management, and has worked in companies from start-up to large enterprises in various industries including high tech, aerospace and defense, telecommunications, financial services, and transportation.
Ken Krupa is CTO of MarkLogic.
“House and Senate Democrats have repeatedly fought for bigger checks for the American people, which House and Senate Republicans have repeatedly rejected — first, during our negotiations when they said that they would not go above $600 and now, with this act of callousness on the Floor,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement Thursday.
Democrats will try again with a roll call vote on a new bill Dec. 28, when the House also plans a vote to override Trump’s veto on the National Defense Authorization Act. Since current government spending runs out that day — and funds for the rest of the fiscal year are included in the virus relief bill Trump criticized and hasn’t signed -- the House could also pass another stopgap measure to avert a partial government shutdown.
Republicans on Thursday tried to seek unanimous consent on a measure to examine taxpayer money spent on foreign aid, but Democrats blocked that move. In his complaint Tuesday about Congress’s combined virus aid and government spending bill, Trump criticized federal resources spent on international programs, even though that spending was allocated as part of the bipartisan appropriations process.