PITTSBURGH — Sen. Bob Casey spoke with the Washington Examiner over the phone from his office in Washington, D.C., to discuss his thoughts on the coronavirus after spending several weeks hunkered down in his hometown of Scranton.
The Democrat and senior senator from Pennsylvania shared his thoughts on the high concentration of senior deaths in nursing homes across his home state and the country, his views on the Senate’s role in the nation’s recovery, and the struggle between treating the personal devastation in lives lost to the coronavirus to the economic devastation the shutdowns have caused.
“I’m not sure that there’s ever been this kind of a crisis because you have two things happening at once,” he said of the possibility of both death and joblessness hitting one family.
Casey said that is exactly what makes this so difficult. “Each one of which would be grave and substantial, but when you have them both happening, and obviously they’re interrelated, but they’re both happening at the same time. Even when the virus is more or a lot less of a threat, and that challenge begins to dissipate, you’re still going to have the economic challenge, which is going to go on for a little while. But we’ve got to beat it,” he said.
The Scranton native said he views Congress’s role at this moment as vital and has been proud of the bipartisan efforts that have kept the country afloat. “We’d be in a lot worse shape without the Paycheck Protection Program, without the direct payments to individuals and families, without the additional unemployment compensation, without the public health investments.”
The father of four daughters, he and his wife Terese welcomed the birth of their first grandchild, a boy named Max Robert Samuelson. Like many grandparents, he has been unable to see his grandson, who was born at the beginning of the shutdown. “The truth is, it is going to be a while before I see my grandson or hold him, that is what we are living with right now.”
Below is the transcript of the Washington Examiner’s conversation with Casey, lightly edited for length and clarity.
Washington Examiner: So with the coronavirus cases in Scranton, were they distributed well across the county, or was there a higher concentration in nursing homes?
Sen. Bob Casey: A lot of nursing home deaths. As of [Friday] morning, Lackawanna was at a little more than 1,200 cases, 124 deaths. Luzerne had more cases, almost 2,500 cases, but a fewer number of deaths. So 120 deaths in Luzerne, 124 in Lackawanna. Combined, about 4,600 cases.
Washington Examiner: I saw the statistic today that showed 70% of the cases are in nursing homes in Pennsylvania. Have you been contacted by Beaver County officials about the Brighton Rehab and Wellness Center, where they have had a high concentration of the coronavirus? Have you had any discussions with the people there about the situation?
Sen. Bob Casey: Yes. What we’ve tried to do with regard to elected officials, is virtually every county, every commissioner, at one point or another in the last month, we’ve had at least one conversation with every commissioner who gets on the phone. And usually what we do is, we do a group of counties, maybe three or four at a time.
But that was a terrible, terrible tragedy. It’s unfortunately emblematic of the national problem, which is, we didn’t act fast enough in a lot of these nursing homes. It might even point to some of the challenges we have generally in nursing homes, which is, as you know, Pat Toomey and I were working on the Special Focus Facility program. … Last time I looked at it, it’s about 525 facilities in the program.
So you would think that those ones that are kind of the poorest performers out of 15, or 500-plus out of 15,000 nationwide, but that 2-3% would be where most of the deaths of COVID-19, most of the cases are. But unfortunately, this became a problem much bigger than just the Special Focus Facility locations. The good and bad nursing homes were being affected.
I think there’s probably some lessons learned about how you catch it early and deal with it, but one thing we have to do is to try to, you’ve got to hold these places accountable when they don’t do a good job, but you also have to help them.
I’ve got a bill that we’re still working on, we haven’t quite introduced it yet, but to provide more funding for these places. If you say, “adopt a best practice,” like where they separate the COVID residents from the non-COVID residents, that costs money. Because then you got to have, you might have physical infrastructure you have to add or change. You need more testing, you need more PPE, all of that.
So I’m in the camp of hold them accountable, but also give them help when they need it to deal with the crisis.
The bill we are working on is emergency funding. We propose $20 billion. What we try to do with this, is principally, try to support both nursing homes and intermediate care facilities with this cohorting idea. Some of those costs are increased staffing, more testing, PPE, and other essential needs. Some states are using efforts like strike teams, where they bring in more aides or nurses or other providers to help in a crisis. If that works, and it sounds like it is working in some states that should be more of a national policy as well.
But again, you need more dollars for it. And then also, obviously, we’re trying to push HHS to develop guidance to permit this kind of cohorting based upon the facility’s history of compliance. And we want it to learn more data for our disclosure. One of the fights I’ve had with the federal government is just the disclosure of the information to give to residents to give to their families and to give to public health agencies in the area. Because the idea that you can just keep all that information bottled up and have an adequate response just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Washington Examiner: Do you have any other senators that you’re working with on this? Is this something that you think can get bipartisan support?
Sen. Bob Casey: Yes, I hope so. I led the effort with Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island. We’re kind of at the beginning of the gathering of bipartisan support. Now some of that, this will be dependent upon whether there’s going to be another bill or not. Obviously, the House has a big ambitious bill that the Senate will not fully embrace, but I hope the Senate is not going to go down the path of saying, “We’re done legislating. No more money, no more policy. We’re going to take a two- month or three-month hiatus on this.” I think we have more to do here. Help meet the double crisis, the public health crisis, and the jobs and economic crisis. So we’re at the beginning of it, but I would think that this is the kind of support that long-term care needs in states, no matter where you live.
Washington Examiner: How do you see the role of Congress, the role of the Senate, going forward? I know that that’s a question that has an open end because we don’t know when the end of this is, right?
Sen. Bob Casey: I think it’s similar to what has transpired. I think the Senate’s got to continue to focus on both the pandemic, as well as the economic devastation that’s unfortunately begun to flow in its wake.
We’ve got to deal with both. And I don’t think we have any choice but to do that. At some point, there’s going to be an engagement about what do you do about the fact that you’re running up debt to meet this crisis? Well, the last time I checked in our society, unless someone can tell me otherwise, the federal government is the only level of government that can run up debt. So no one else can really do this, no other level of government can do it. And there’s no other entity. The private sector can’t do this, they’re having their own problems.
We’re kind of the only show in town for getting dollars and good policy out the door. Some of us have been very — it’s not like we’re bipartisan, but it’s been good.
We’d be in a lot worse shape without the Paycheck Protection Program, without the direct payments to individuals and families, without the additional unemployment compensation, without the public health investments. So we have to keep going, even though it’s difficult because you’re expending a dollar amount over a few months that you normally would spend over three years. And that number could go up. And you’re making policy quickly sometimes, and there will be gaps in the exacts and shortcomings, but we got to keep going because the virus, unfortunately, is in charge.
Washington Examiner: There has been both health devastation and economic devastation, sometimes in the same family, so they’re not mutually exclusive?
Sen. Bob Casey: Exactly. That’s what makes it so difficult. I’m not sure that there’s ever been this kind of a crisis because you have two things happening at once. Each one of which would be grave and substantial, but when you have them both happening, and obviously they’re interrelated, but they’re both happening at the same time. Even when the virus is more, or a lot less of a threat, and that challenge begins to dissipate, you’re still going to have the economic challenge, which is going to go on for a little while. But we got to beat it.
Washington Examiner: How do you foresee Congress meeting and governing going forward? How do you see this body of government working?
Sen. Bob Casey: Well, I would prefer in the Senate, if we’re going to be in Washington, and we’re working on a COVID-19 related issues, not voting on nominations. Today, for example, we’re working on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That’s obviously a national security issue that you’ve got to work on. But other than something that serious or that, something facing a deadline that is an important, highly important matter, I don’t think we should be doing nominations of any kind when you’ve got COVID-19 work to be done.
But Mitch McConnell has chosen otherwise. I just think we have to use our time like we have been using it, which is staying engaged with our states, learning from that, and using that information and that sometimes information and inspiration to have a policy in place that deals with the virus and helps those that need help in the economic crisis.
Washington Examiner: If or when you get out of Washington, do you foresee yourself at all, maybe getting in the car with one of your aides, and just sort of driving around the state on the most granule level, just to see what things are like?
Sen. Bob Casey: At some point, that’s probably a hope that we all have in Congress, to be able to see it up close. I mean, not quite these interactions with all kinds of groups. A lot of our life is just like your life, a series of phone calls or video conferences and things like that.
But a lot of it then, not just kind of catching up with mayors and local officials as well as area agencies on aging, groups that represent a hospital or a group of healthcare advocates or leaders, folks that are in the trenches on food security and what’s happening in community.
So it’s a real education in how people at a very local level are dealing with a tidal wave in real-time. It’s almost this, while they’re swimming against the tide, they’re telling you how they’re doing it. It’s really remarkable. I mean, every job was harder, especially those jobs that are closest to the people.
I’m a little removed from it. We’re kind of still at a distance. So yeah, that would be good to, at some point, get in the car and be able to do that.
How is your family, Salena?
Washington Examiner: Well, it is hard, I miss Sunday dinner with all of my family and hugging my parents and sisters and my grandchildren and my children. I haven’t hugged anyone for 60 days, which is weird.
Sen. Bob Casey: No, that’s the hardest of all. And I think in some of these nursing homes, it isn’t simply the most dramatic, grave example where someone gets the virus, and they die, or someone gets the virus, and they suffer terribly. Even if none of that happens, it’s just the, this separation and isolation can be [awful].
Sometimes you can measure it. The impact of isolation can be as bad to your health as smoking a couple packs of cigarettes every day. In other words, isolation can have an adverse physical impact that can be as bad as smoking too many cigarettes. I mean, that’s how bad it can be generally. But just imagine if someone is used to having interaction with their family, and then that’s all shut off.”
There is one bill I should mention, and it’s bipartisan. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and I got on a bill with Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia, and it’s about providing some support for technology in these settings like nursing homes so that the folks can communicate with their loved ones that way. So they’re not completely shut off or isolated.
