Money for free COVID-19 testing for all runs out amid federal funding impasse
PHILADELPHIA — Coronavirus testing providers lose the ability to be reimbursed for tests given to uninsured people on Wednesday, the first major casualty inflicted by Congress' refusal to authorize new federal COVID-19 funding.
Testing is key in monitoring community spread, detecting outbreaks, getting people treatment, and preventing them from giving the virus to others. Some providers in the Philadelphia region said Tuesday that they remained committed to offering free testing to all and were assessing how they could cover the costs.
"We just can't stomach the thought of turning someone away that's coming for testing," said Azmat Husain, chief medical officer for Personic Healthcare, which operates four local sites, including one at St. Christopher's Hospital in North Philadelphia, where about 20% of patients are uninsured or undocumented.
Until now, private providers have been able to bill the federal government for the cost of COVID testing for the uninsured or underinsured. But since Congress scrapped an additional $22.5 billion in COVID-19 funding from a government spending bill earlier this month, the fate of the federal coronavirus response has been in limbo.
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene slams Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy and government as ‘corrupt’
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has denounced Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “corrupt,” along with his government.
Greene effectively put herself in the same camp as far right-wing colleague Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), who has harshly slammed Ukraine’s leader even as Zelenskyy leads the fight against the Russian invasion.
“Do you agree with Madison Cawthorn that Zelenskyy is corrupt and that the Ukrainian government is corrupt?” Greene said, reading a question submitted by a participant in a Tuesday evening town hall.
“Yes and yes. That’s an easy one,” the lawmaker said.
Greene also pinned a tweet that denounces “Zelensky(y) & Nazi militias in his corrupt country.”
The unfounded reference to “Nazi militias” echoes Russian propaganda that laid the groundwork for the invasion and ignores the Ukrainian president’s Jewish background.
—New York Daily News
‘Teach the Truth’ campaign aims to battle book bans, censorship in Texas schools
DALLAS — Education and civil rights groups are forming a coalition to beat back censorship in Texas public schools and oppose book bans.
The Teach the Truth campaign aims to educate community members on how to testify at school board meetings, pressure state representatives and organize against attempts to limit what’s taught in classrooms.
“We come to you with a renewed sense of urgency,” Texas Freedom Network director Val Benavidez said during a launch event Tuesday morning. “At this very moment in Texas, the stories of diverse communities are being taken from the shelves of school libraries, and the truthful history of our state and nation is being erased from public school lesson plans.”
Lessons about LGBT people and the United States’ history of racism have been in the crosshairs of Republican state leaders. The Legislature passed two bills targeting critical race theory, an academic framework that probes the way policies and laws uphold systemic racism.
—The Dallas Morning News
Putin adviser reportedly quits over opposition to the Ukraine war
MOSCOW — Anatoly Chubais, a senior adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has quit his job as a Kremlin envoy to international organizations.
"Chubais has resigned at his own request," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to the Interfax news agency.
The 66-year-old Moscow insider's resignation is reportedly linked to Russia's war against Ukraine, but Peskov said only that it was a "personal" decision.
The Russian business daily RBK said Chubais was leaving Russia for Turkey.
Chubais, long seen as a member of the Kremlin's liberal camp and who also held the climate portfolio, took office as special representative to international organizations in December 2020.
—dpa
