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William O'Boyle: Casey calls for improved access to nursing home vaccination data

Times Leader - 9/11/2021

Sep. 11—U.S. Senate Aging Committee Chair Sen. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, and Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, have asked the Biden Administration to take additional steps to provide the public with more usable and accessible information on the rate of COVID-19 vaccinations among residents and workers in our Nation's nursing homes.

"We believe more needs to be done to make these transparency measures useful to patients and their loved ones, particularly given the recent surge in COVID-19 cases across the United States, and the wide variation in vaccination rates among nursing home residents and workers throughout our Nation," the Senators wrote. "We request that CMS continue building on its efforts to increase transparency regarding the rate of vaccinations among residents and workers at nursing homes. The agency should ensure that the average Medicare or Medicaid beneficiary, their families and employees are able to easily access facility-level data on Care Compare."

Care Compare is one-stop shop for consumers seeking to find out more information about health care providers participating in the Medicare program, including but not limited to nursing homes, hospitals, hospice care and individual physicians. The Care Compare website is https://www.medicare.gov/care-compare.

The letter, sent to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, comes as the highly contagious delta variant surges throughout the United States. There were more than 25,000 COVID-19 cases among nursing home workers during the first four weeks of August, the highest levels since February 2021, according to data reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Resident infections have similarly increased, with federally certified nursing homes having reported more than 16,000 infections through the first four weeks of August, the highest total since February 2021, although infection levels still remain a fraction of the more than 130,000 infections that were reported in December 2020.

The request to include vaccination data on Care Compare, a step CMS has indicated it is working towards, builds on previous work by the senators to increase transparency surrounding vaccination data and help protect nursing home residents, workers and their families. Earlier this year, the senators called on CMS to collect and release this data, however it currently resides on separate, difficult to navigate websites run by CMS and CDC. The senators first called for such data to be collected and published in December 2020, at the time vaccines first became available.

Keller vows to fight Biden's vaccine mandate

U.S. Rep. Fred Keller, R-Middleburg, issued the following statement on President Biden's mandate requiring vaccination for all federal employees, contractors, and private-sector businesses with 100 or more employees:

"Joe Biden's federal vaccine mandate not only contradicts his previous assurances—it infringes on the most basic freedoms of America's workers and employers to make their own health decisions regarding vaccination. This administration is trampling on the rights of 80 million private sector workers and weaponizing the federal bureaucracy to impose government-sanctioned workplace discrimination on the basis of vaccination status.

"As the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, I will fight these totalitarian measures through all available means. The federal government has no authority to dictate who is permitted to have a job, and Biden's efforts to strong-arm employers into compliance will not stand."

Toomey questions legality of Biden's vaccine requirements

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley, has questioned the legal authority of the Biden Administration to mandate vaccines or weekly testing for all employers with over 100 employees.

Under the proposal, businesses that fail to enforce this mandate would be subject to a $14,000 per-violation fine.

"Choosing the vaccine is the right choice for most of America," Toomey said. "My family and I received the vaccine, and I encourage everyone medically able to make that same decision.

"Private businesses have the legal authority to impose vaccine mandates on their customers and or employees if they see fit. But federal government mandates, of dubious legality, will further alienate the skeptical, undermine our institutions, and punish ordinary business owners and their employees."

Toomey slams Democrat attempts to limit stock buybacks

U.S. Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley, released the following statement after Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) introduced legislation to impose a two percent tax on stock buybacks.

"I'm astonished my Democrat colleagues think it's a good idea to punish a company's investors—including those invested via a 401k or a pension plan — when fellow investors in the same company decide to sell their stock and take back some of their own money.

"It's especially galling because this tax hits the company's bottom line, punishing investors who choose to keep their money invested in the business while others choose to take their money out.

"A stock buyback is a responsible way for a company's management team to return profit or excess cash to the firm's owners when that capital cannot otherwise be productively deployed. This flawed tax will hurt economic growth and discourage business from going public."

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