An Open Letter From Indivisible SF to Our Members of Congress About the COVID-19 and Healthcare Issues in America
We the undersigned members of Indivisible SF thank Speaker Pelosi and Representative Speier for passing HR.6201 in the House. And we commend Senators Feinstein and Harris for supporting it in the Senate.
We appreciate that the “Families First Coronavirus Response Act” (renamed from the “Putting the Health and Safety of American People Before Corporate Needs Act,”) includes:
Paid sick & emergency leave. Two weeks of paid sick leave due to infection or quarantine for many workers. Up to three months of paid family and medical leave for many employees to care for ill family members or take care of children during school closures. (Large corporations with more than 500 workers are exempt from these requirements as are small businesses that claim a hardship exemption.)
Enhanced Unemployment Insurance. Federal funding for states that choose to enhance or extend unemployment benefits to employees furloughed due to economic or health effects of the coronavirus emergency.
Food security. Provides additional funds for nutrition and food assistance programs, including Special Supplemental Nutrition Program (SNAP), Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and food programs for seniors. Waives some rules that limit school meal programs and some work requirements. Allows states to apply for some emergency SNAP benefits.
Free COVID-19 testing. Require that all coronavirus testing be provided at no cost to consumers.
Health-worker safety protection. Require the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue emergency temporary standards that require certain employers of health care and other high-risk workers to develop and implement a comprehensive infectious disease exposure control plan to protect their employees.
At the same time, we want to express our disgust at Trump and the Republican Party's refusal to include in HR.6201 the following provisions originally proposed by Democrats. We strongly urge our representatives to renew the fight for these provisions in a new bill:
Paid sick & emergency leave for all. Require large employers with more than 500 workers to provide paid sick & emergency leave.
Enhanced Unemployment Insurance for all. Require all states to provide enhanced/extended unemployment benefits to employees furloughed due to effects of the health emergency.
Anti-price gouging protections. Consumers must be protected from price gouging when purchasing medical and non-medical essentials during the emergency.
Increase capacity of medical system. The healthcare system and medical facilities must be expanded and upgraded in order to respond to surges in demand.
We also urge our representatives to swiftly take additional necessary measures such as:
Fact & Science-Based Governance. Require that policies, rules, & regulations be based on facts and science. If political appointees overrule the majority-recommendations of Civil Service scientists and experts, they must formally report to Congress the opinions they rejected and their rationale for doing so.
Restore & rebuild our health infrastructure. Funds and programs that have been cut from DHS, HHS, CDC, and NIH must be restored. As just one example, restore the CDC's Pandemic Response team and the NSC's Global Health Security team that were eliminated by the Trump administration in 2018. Similarly, funding for hospitals and other healthcare facilities must be restored, particularly in rural areas.
Fully fund free testing & treatment. In a national health emergency, the Public Health Service Act provides HHS the legal authority to use funds from the Public Health Emergency Fund to pay the cost of necessary testing and treatment for those who are not adequately covered by their health insurance. To ensure that funds are available, the Public Health Emergency Fund must be fully-funded.
Congressional oversight. Require that regular, complete, and accurate reports and testimony on the COVID-19 emergency be made to Congress by DHS, HHS, CDC, and NIH officials including both political appointees and senior civil service officials. Agencies who receive public funds must be required to promptly and completely respond to congressional subpoenas for testimony and documents.
Whistleblower protection. The jobs, seniority, pay, and assignments of government employees who report fraud, abuse, mismanagement, misappropriation, discrimination, censorship, and political interference to their agency's Inspector General or the House Whistleblower Ombudsman must be affirmatively protected.
Secure and humane borders. Necessary health screening for people entering the country must not be used as a pretext for imposition of a white-nationalist, anti-immigrant political agenda, nor should there be any "closure" of our Southern border or policies designed to discriminate against refugees or legal immigrants awaiting processing.
Fair tax cuts. Emergency tax cuts (if any) must be designed to protect jobs and incomes of employees rather than jacking up corporate profits or enriching the already wealthy. Therefore:
No cuts to capital gains or inheritance taxes and no reduction in income tax rates for the upper brackets.
Tax cuts must not be granted to companies that lay off or fire employees because of an economic downturn, or who refuse to pay employees who miss work because of illness or quarantine.
Cuts to federal Social Security, Medicare, or Unemployment payroll taxes must not result in, or be used as an excuse for, cuts to benefits or allocation of funds to the states.
Emergency-related tax cuts must have an explicit sunset provision that automatically restores the current rates by a set date or whenever the emergency is over as defined by objective, measurable criteria.
Election security during emergencies. Require all states to offer voters the option of voting-by-mail over an extended period by using paper ballots at no cost to them whenever one-quarter of the states have declared health, environmental, or other emergencies that might disrupt an election (for example, S.3440).
Eviction moratorium. For the duration of the health emergency and its resulting economic impact, institute via legislation or executive order an immediate nationwide moratorium on all foreclosures and evictions from properties owned, subsidized, or managed by the federal government or local agencies who receive federal funds. This moratorium to cover both the initiation of new foreclosures and evictions and the suspension of those in progress, and cover properties owned or insured by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, VA, RHS and all those living in federally-assisted housing of all kinds.
No fossil-fuel bailout. The climate emergency is real and potentially catastrophic. The climate crisis is caused by over-reliance on fossil fuels to the detriment of the environment. Economic instability in oil prices has little to do with the coronavirus and everything to do with international greed. No public funds should be used to bailout or prop up the profits of the energy cartel or the oil billionaires.
SIGNED by more than 100 Indivisible members.