The Daily Signal - What Michigan and Ohio Are Doing to Respond to COVID-19

Episode Date: March 26, 2020

 On Tuesday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, ordered a 'Stay at Home and Stay Safe Order' to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Lindsay Killen, vice president for strategic outreach and communications at the Mackinac Center joins me today on The Daily Signal Podcast to talk about how Michigan is responding to the coronavirus crisis. Plus, Rea Hederman, executive director of the economic research center and vice president of policy at The Buckeye Institute, joins me for a second segment to talk about how Ohio is adapting to help small business owners and health care providers during COVID-19. We also cover these stories: Will the House pass the new $2 trillion Senate coronavirus package? In a video posted to twitter Wednesday, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio predicted that as many as half of New Yorkers would eventually get the coronavirus. If you’re a non-essential business still operating in Los Angeles, the mayor wants you to stop--and he’s not kidding around. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, March 26. I'm Kate Trinko. And I'm Rachel Del Judas. Lindsay Killen, Vice President for Strategic Outreach and Communications at the McAnaw Center, joins me today on the Daily Signal podcast to talk about how Michigan is responding to the coronavirus crisis. Plus, Ray Hederman, executive director of the Economic Research Center and Vice President of Policy at the Buckeye Institute joins me for a second segment to talk about how Ohio is adapting to help small business owners and healthcare providers during COVID-19. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple

podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. Will the House pass the new $2 trillion Senate coronavirus package? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement Wednesday, this bipartisan legislation takes us a long way down the road in meeting the needs. of the American people. And House Democrats will now review the final provisions and legislative text of the agreement to determine a course of action. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, sounded a note of frustration that the Senate hadn't been able to pass legislation sooner

via ABC News. Mr. President, I'll leave it to others to compare the bipartisan Sunday bill to the final version we will pass today and determine whether the last few changes really required or merited three days

of delay three days of delay in the face of this worsening crisis. But that Washington drama does not matter anymore. The Senate is going to stand together,

act together, and pass this historic relief package today. In an op-ed for the Daily Signal about an earlier version of the Senate coronavirus deal, Rachel Gressler, an economics researcher at the Heritage Foundation, wrote, this bill has some good measures, but conservatives are right to be concerned that it borders on bailouts for big businesses and puts taxpayer dollars to ineffective use. New York City continues to be ravaged by COVID-19. In a video posted to Twitter Wednesday, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio predicted that as many as half of New Yorkers would eventually get the coronavirus. Right now, this disease is causing so much pain, so many challenges, so much fear

and anxiety. It's going to be with us for months. Probably more than half of all New Yorkers will be infected with this disease. Thank God for the vast majority. It will be a very limited, mild experience, but for a lot of other people, it's going to be really tough. We're going to lose some people. Meanwhile, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York said that things could be worse, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation. So, to the extent people say, boy, these are burdensome requirements, social distancing, no restaurants, no essential workers. Yes, they are burdensome. By the way, they are effective and are necessary.

and the evidence suggests at this point that they've slowed the hospitalizations, the governor said. If you're a non-essential business still operating in Los Angeles, the mayor wants you to stop, and he's not kidding around. According to a report from the Bay Area News Group, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti said, we're still getting reports each day of non-essential businesses continuing to operate as normal. This behavior is irresponsible and selfish. And he indicated if such businesses don't stop operating, that turning off their power and water would be on the table. President Trump is now at 49% approval ratings in Gallup,

the highest number he has had ever in his presidency and tied with his approval ratings during the Senate impeachment trial. Six out of 10 Americans think Trump is handling the coronavirus pandemic well, while 38% disapprove of what he's doing. There is a sharp partisan divide. I'm near 27% of Democrats approve of how Trump is handling COVID-19, while 60% of independence and 94% of Republicans approve. A Washington State public radio station is cutting President Trump's mic, or at least no longer going to let him have the airwaves to himself. The station tweeted, KUOW is monitoring White House briefings for the latest news on the coronavirus, and we will continue to share all news relevant to Washington State with our listeners.

However, we will not be airing the briefings live due to a pattern of false or misleading information provided that cannot be fact-checked in real time. White House spokesman Judd Deere told the Hill, it's not surprising, but also a failure of their duty to the American people that some media outlets would choose to block their audiences from receiving accurate, up-to-date information on President Trump's whole-of-government approach to slowing the spread of COVID-19. Next up, Rachel will speak with some state leaders about what can be done about COVID-19 on the state level. The daily signals priority is to make a new state level. make sure you and your family are receiving the best information on how to stay healthy and keep

the coronavirus from spreading. Here is an important message from U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Jerome Adams, discussing how young people can help slow the spread of the virus. A question I often get asked is why should young people care about the spread of coronavirus? Well, we know that people with underlying medical conditions over the age of 60 are at highest risk, but they've got to get it from somebody. And it's why during our 15 days to slow the spread initiative, we're encouraging young people to avoid large gatherings of 10 people or more, because we know that if you get coronavirus, you're at risk for spreading it to someone else. I'm joined on the Daily Signal podcast by Lindsay Killen. She's the vice president for strategic outreach and communications at the Macanaw

Center. Lindsay, it's great to have you here with us on the Daily Signal podcast. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Well, to start off, can you talk a little bit about the major reforms that the Michigan Governor, Governor Whitmore, has instituted as a response to the coronavirus? Sure. Well, for those of you who don't know, Michigan's Governor Whitmer is ideologically pretty far left. So her administration in the McAnaw Center are rarely aligned on the issues. However, we've been very successful at Bridge Building across the political aisle and have great relationships with her staff and very strong relationships with our legislative leadership. So as the COVID crisis escalated over the last three to four weeks, the McAnnaut Center put together a very short list of health care specific policy reforms that the governor could adopt immediately via executive order that would have a direct impact on providers addressing the COVID threat.

And about 48 hours after we assembled those recommendations and had those conversations, the governor issued one of several solid executive orders that included most of our significant recommendations. Those are first and most significantly, a suspension of certificate of need laws, which have historically limited the ability for health care facilities to expand beds, capacities, and acquire critical equipment like CT scans, MRIs, and PET scanners. Michigan's CON program, in fact, has been one of the most far-reaching nationwide. Nationally, the average number of technologies regulated among con states is 16, and Michigan has 18. So this was a very significant reform in her executive order. Secondly, she lifted all requirements pertaining to the maintenance of licenses for medical professionals

and allowed for any hours spent treating patients during COVID crisis to count towards the continuing education requirements. Thirdly, she expanded scope of practice for nurses' aids to treat patients with the same autonomy as certified nurses and allowed for non-nursing assistants such as volunteer, social workers, and other medical texts. to operate with broader authority as certified nurses' aides. She also expanded scope of practice for child care providers, providing care during the COVID crisis, removing licensing requirements, and allowing licensed teachers and other aftercare professionals

to also act as daycare providers. And lastly, done outside of the executive order, but at the same time through a regulatory change with state agencies, Governor Whitmer has brought in telemedicine for Medicaid patients in the state. Well, thank you for sharing that perspective. When it comes to the practical side of medical supplies, like masks and ventilators, we've heard a lot in the news about different areas and hospitals running low on those. How is Michigan doing and how are Michigan medical providers doing when it comes to those practical needs?

Well, Michigan has been hit hard by COVID, disproportionately hard compared to a lot of our neighbors. We are now up to about 3,000 cases and about 45 deaths, 19 deaths, just in the past 24 hours. And our health care providers are really feeling that strain. We do have a shortage of tests. We do have a shortage of equipment. Ventilators in particular are not available in all of the health care facilities that are needing them. We have hospitals that are reaching their capacity and are looking to work with other hospitals outside of their typical network to try to find beds and rooms and treatment places for people who have been infected. So we really are reaching that peak threshold.

And so fortunately, Governor Whitmer's executive order has been in place now for almost a week, because if that had not been the case, the crisis would be even more substantial here in Michigan. You had mentioned a few moments ago about how Governor Whitmore tends to be a little bit more liberal, but your team has been able to work really well with her. And I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that in your perspective of her leadership as well as how this has been a time for both conservatives and liberals to work together in a more bipartisan manner. Well, I do think that at times of crisis, that is one of the things that's encouraging to look to. We see this happen a lot throughout the course of our history as a nation. The fact that people can come together from differing political perspectives, put those differences aside, roll their sleeves up and figure out how to work together to get things done. And we are seeing that in Michigan. And as I have said, the McAnough Center and Governor Whitmer have often been at odds on different policy. forms in the past. But we have laid aside our differences and figured out how to come together

with the McAnaw Center being a solution shop and Governor Whitmer looking for solutions. And we've been able to provide those. And to her credit, she's acted quickly and she's acted fairly pragmatically. We have been very pleased by her leadership by and large. We, you know, we could pick apart different things. We could disagree on some of the the finer details. And we do believe that there are still, there's still room for her to do a bit more. But we do think that by and large, the steps that she has taken have been among the boldest, to be honest, amongst the governors around the country. For example, there's only been two other states that have lifted their certificate of need laws, those being New York and North Carolina.

certificate of need is a big, big barrier for people to access care. So we do think she's been, she's done a good job from Michigan thus far. One area we would quibble with and we just would encourage her administration to look past is that she has, she has been frustrated by the lack of a so-called national plan coming out of the Trump administration, whereby states would just sort of fall in line and it would be a one-size-fits-all approach for governors to buy into. We push back heavily against that. Obviously, we think our federal system where states have autonomy has been one of the saving graces in all of this for the United States to combat COVID in a more responsible and reactive way than other countries have been able to do. We think states need to

be able to address the crisis in a unique way addressing their own unique needs. And so while Governor Whitmer has been doing that on behalf of the state of Michigan and has done a good job at doing that thus far, we do encourage her administration to look at what states can do differently and what policies can states incubate that we can be sharing as best practices across the country where we're actually being nimble and responsive to unique needs, rather than following some sort of universal plan like other countries have done that has broken down and not been responsive to the crisis. You mentioned, Lindsay, how the top-down response isn't something that you all believe in.

So I wanted to hear from you. Are there any policy recommendations, maybe a couple, two or three, that you would encourage the governor to look at is something that you believe would be beneficial or even other states that where you have found something to be specifically advantageous and that you'd like to, you know, talk to her about to say, hey, this is something we should look at. Sure, absolutely. You know, other governors have taken some admirable action on a couple of policies I've mentioned. Mississippi, for example, is allowing physicians to practice telehealth across state lines. Colorado and Tennessee have granted licensing reciprocity for physicians to operate across

state lines. So we would encourage Governor Whitmer to do those same things, broaden telehealth and give licensing reciprocity for physicians across the states to operate in Michigan. Also, we would encourage her to make the reforms that she's issued in her executive order relative to CON restriction, scope of practice, and licensing to make those reforms permanent policy and not just temporary policy in the state of Michigan. That's, I think, the way that we can make sure that Michigan isn't just being responsive right now to this immediate crisis, but is prepared to be responsive to any future crisis. And then lastly, I'd say that we were looking to work with her administration to increase the, to build on the policies that she's issued, allowing for broader scope of practice for medical professionals to take those a few steps further and allow broader scope of practice for nurse practitioners and RN so that. they have autonomy to safely treat patients without oversight from a physician.

Another area where Americans, I'm sure people in Michigan, are also heavily impacted by coronavirus, is small business owners. How specifically is Michigan looking to help small business owners who have been impacted and had to shutter their doors due to coronavirus? Well, the legislature here in Michigan is looking at that as we speak. there will be some compromises between legislative leadership and Governor Whitmer's office to make sure that to the extent that it's possible and responsible fiscally to do so that small business owners are held harmless for the business implications that's resulted from Governor Whitmer's shelter-in policy and the necessary steps that they've had to take to be, you know, responsible to address the public health threat. There will be efforts to expand paid leave, paid sick time. And there are compromises that the McAnaw Center is going to have to make on some policies, some spending policies and budget priorities over the coming months. That's certainly true.

But I would say also that Governor Whitmer in issuing her shelter-in policy, She did give some broad exemptions to small businesses for them to continue to take care of essential services related to their business models. So if they need to be processing payroll or if they need to move to online services, restaurants, for example, can continue to provide carry out services. So even in some of the harsher response mechanisms that the state has had to embrace, there have been, there has been an acknowledgement that there needs to be some leniency and flexibility for small businesses in particular to adapt their business models a bit and be able to continue to provide some service and to have, you know, an ability to pay their employees.

Another huge impact we've seen across the country is when it comes to education, a lot of schools are having to finish their academic year. basically using distance and e-learning to finish things up. So how do you think this potentially going down the road after coronavirus is a thing of the past? We hope and pray sometime soon. But how do you think this potentially could change education, the face of education as we know it? And how do you think, are there any recommendations you have when it comes specifically to education and how coronavirus has impacted it for Michigan? Sure. Well, here Michigan schools are still closed, of course. They have not closed for the entire year, but that is a real possibility. There is a debate happening now amongst lawmakers about how to adequately account for the hours that students are spending outside of the classroom in their homes and accessing online learning. This is a very, very important intersection for Michigan.

Michigan in particular here on this issue of education and education policy reform because Michigan has one of the most stringent Blaine amendments in the entire country, which restricts Michigan's ability to have a versatile education system. Right now, students really only have two options for education in Michigan. You can either go to your traditional public school or you can go to a public charter school. Private schooling is not something that's allowed via, you know, public dollars. So if students want to go to a private school in Michigan, they have to be able to finance that entirely, you know,

through their own finances. So that it's, we are very restrictive state in that way. And because of that, when schools closed in Michigan due to the COVID threat, students, teachers and students across the state were having to adapt very quickly to an online model that they are drastically unfamiliar with and to a model that the state of Michigan has frankly discouraged through their education policies for decades in that we have discriminatory policies against online learning through through a hybrid learning environment. So this is a very appropriate time for the state of Michigan to reassess those policies and think about how can we make sure that our students, if asked to be this responsive to a future crisis, and our teachers, you know, asked to be this responsive to a future crisis. You know, how can we prepare an infrastructure in Michigan where we've encouraged online learning tools, where we've encouraged hybrid education, education models where students are accessing virtual classes for part of their days, going into a traditional public school for a part of the day, and then they're, you know, getting homeschooled

for a class or two because Michigan has, as I said, thus far discouraged students from homeschooling, online learning and private schooling and hybrid education models. I think we're suffering for that. And it's created a lot of confusion. months, teachers, students, parents about how to adapt to this sort of new normal we're in right now. We hope that in the future, Michigan's going to be better prepared on the education front, and now is the time to address that. Well, thank you for sharing that perspective. Last question, when it comes to something Michigan has done really well that you see other

states may be struggling in or just a recommendation that the McAnna Center has, is there something that you guys would be? recommend as something that states should be looking at as they try to cope with coronavirus in their own state? Yes, we would recommend two things. Number one, if you have certificate of need laws in your state, lift those certificate of need laws. And number two, if you have restrictive policies around online learning or any sort of hybrid learning model for education in your state, consider adopting a policy that allows for those policies to be lifted during times of emergencies so that students and teachers and education providers can very quickly adapt to an online model

and that that can be a model for moving forward for education in your state so that your state is more flexible and what types of education that they can provide students. Lindsay, thank you so much for joining us on the Daily Single Podcast. We really appreciate having you here. Thank you for having me. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. In the Agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on,

what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The Agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online, as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. I'm joined on the DailySignal podcast by Ray Hederman. He's the executive director of the Economic Research Center and Vice President of Policy at the Buckeye Institute. Ray, great to have you on the Daily Signal podcast. Thank you for having me, Rachel. Delighted to be here.

To start off, Ray, can you talk about how Ohio is responding to the coronavirus pandemic? Yeah, so Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has really been on the forefront in terms of actively preparing the state for the pandemic. A couple of weeks ago, he canceled spectators at the Arnold, which is an international body lifting convention that we have here. Usually thousands of spectators come here. He very quickly shut down restaurants, take out food. And this past week, March about the first. 20th, we entered into a state lockdown where basically everybody except for essential workers are closed. So it's been a real challenge for the people here in the state of Ohio to think about

what the impact is, not just on your health and loved ones, but then on the economy and what type of job are you going to have? Earlier this week, Ohio issued big policy recommendations regarding the coronavirus pandemic. Can you highlight some of those? Yeah. So, you know, states maintain a lot of power over their health care system. It's up to the state to decide how they're going to license doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. How is a state going to reimburse certain practices such as telemedicine? And so what we've seen is that the emergency has really gotten the state to look at regulations that have choked off the supply of medical professionals. So we sent a note to the governor and to the lieutenant governor basically talking to them about some ideas that we've had. The

idea being that the governor making sure that we were prepared for this medical emergency. And so what these regulations would do, for example, is say that if you're a doctor licensed in Kentucky, you cannot come practice in the state of Ohio unless you're certified in Ohio. We're glad to see that the state of Ohio, as recently as last week, is now allowing doctors out of state to come in to the Ohio borders to be able to practice medicine. We're also looking to make sure that telehealth remains a vibrant option for people who are able to connect with medical providers using the internet, using their computer. We had stricter regulations basically saying you're going to have to see your doctor in person before any telehealth can begin. We've waived that requirement.

And finally, we're also looking at waiving requirements we call scope of practice, which restricts what nurses can do. Basically, the government says that nurses have to work. under close supervision with the doctor. And in some cases, they're not allowed to do what they're actually taught to do in nursing school. So again, what this means is that it's going to be harder for people, especially in rural areas, places that are hit hard for the pandemic to really see a health care provider when they need to. So we're glad to see the state moving proactively, letting out-of-state doctors come into Ohio to practice medicine if we need them, and really make sure that people are going to be able to get the care

they need by qualified professionals. How is Ohio changing regulations to bring more medical providers on board? Yes, you know, we've heard a lot from nurses up in Case Western, a great nursing school up around Cleveland, you know, which is really the center of the Ohio outbreak. They've really been training advanced nurses to go out and be able to offer this care. And again, the idea is being able to reach people that have underserved that maybe don't have access to a full primary care and really give nurses the power to go out there and treat a lot of these patients. We're also trying to make sure that pharmacists are going to be able to take on some of the burden

because, you know, unfortunately, people are still going to get sick with everyday illnesses, you know, strep throat, flu, those type of ailments that people still need care for, and so many of our doctors are already basically facing the surge due to the pandemic. So the idea is that pharmacist can actually, you know, test to see if you have strep throat and quickly provide an antibiotic to meet these basic health care needs. So the idea is making sure that all these professionals get to utilize their knowledge, get to treat more people, and hopefully after the pandemic's over, this will actually start making health care cheaper because people have more options to get the care they need.

How are Ohio hospitals and medical providers doing? Do they have enough practical items like ventilators and masks? So Ohio basically has been trying to be, again, fairly proactive on this. So we basically canceled elective surgeries as of last week in preparation because the last thing you want happening is somebody during elective surgery all of a sudden starting to have medical distress, needing a ventilator, which could be used for a virus patient. So what we did is that we basically, the state director of health, encourage hospitals to cancel elective surgeries to go ahead and make sure that we have.

have enough medical equipment. Just like everybody else in the country, our medical providers who are doing heroic work are definitely concerned about their own safety. And so all we can do basically is wait for the American manufacturers, many of which were located here in the Buckeye State, to be able to produce the mask and needed medical equipment to protect them. How is Ohio working to help small businesses affected by coronavirus? Well, you know, small businesses and really the Ohio workers and workers around the country aren't just bearing just the nervousness and fallout from being sick or potentially beginning sick from the pandemic, their entire way of life is at risk. To give you an idea in Ohio,

the week before really the virus happened, the governor started to shut down the state. We had about 900 people filing a day for unemployment. You know, the Ohio economy was very strong. A week after the governor shut down the restaurant industry and quarantined, we're now seeing unemployment up to over 33,000 people. So restaurants are trying to figure out how they can basically make takeout work, how they can keep some of their staff employed, really asking the community to help. One of the great things is that we're seeing a lot of the private sector responding where, you know, restaurants now are producing meals for needy people, helping get meals to schoolchildren who may need

their lunches, and really trying to bond together to fight the crisis. We're also trying to make basically utilize some of the loans that the federal government is provided. Ohio's most states has to run a balanced budget, so we're really looking to the federal government to try to be able to use some of these small business loans to really keep Ohio businesses afloat until people can go back to work. How are Ohio schools adapting to using remote learning while the state is under quarantine? Well, you know, probably like a lot of states, as people are learning by doing, teachers and students and parents alike, a lot of like. This morning, you know, My son got a YouTube video of his morning announcements from his third grade class. You know, he went and recorded himself reading a fairy tale. So we're seeing a lot of students now are adept in being able to use online combined multi-technology

to be able to really get their lessons plans, submit their lessons plans online. We've also seen that the state is basically sitting there trying to figure out a way to work with students and teachers, suspending some of the state tests, for example, but at the same time trying to make sure that students are actually learning, being able to make sure that then get their assignments through email, through a video, through a web lecture, through a YouTube video. And so it's taking a lot of creative energy to figure out. But so far, right now, the Ohio schools are meeting,

except for those that are on spring break. But instead of meeting in a classroom, they're meeting with a lot of their friends online. Lastly, Ray, what would your recommendation be to states who have had maybe a less robust response than Ohio has had? What would you encourage them to do in their efforts to combat coronavirus? Yeah, sure. Well, I think a lot of the recommendations that we at the Buckeye Institute made to the governor apply to other states. First, address the health care issues. Look at your laws to see if doctors can practice across state lines in case we need to shift medical professionals to hotspots, making sure nurses,

nurses and pharmacists can practice to the best of their ability. You can also think creatively about using medical students to maybe help meet some of the demand. You see some interesting things coming out of Colorado, New York, where they're trying to have medical nursing students be able to be some responders, be able to take some tests, answer phone calls, really to help make up for some of the shortage that we see on medical providers. The second thing is, I think it's important to realize that our economy has been wrecked by this virus. That means a lot of tax revenues and states are going to be much lower than anticipated, has unemployment increases. So our governor, Mike DeWine, declared a hiring freeze for the state of Ohio, and it's

instructing Ohio agencies to look at cut spending. This is important because sometimes in recession, states have raised taxes, raise sales taxes, to try to get revenues, and this ends up hurting the economy will make it harder for those small businesses and even large businesses to be able to get back up to speed when the pandemic's over. So there's a real fiscal component where states that have to maintain a balanced budget need to make sure that the constraining spending even has the revenues start falling. And Ray, thank you so much for being here with us today on the Daily Signal podcast. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. We at the Buckeye Institute. We're a free market think tank here in Columbus, Ohio, working on Ohio policies, but also working across state lines to

bring free market ideas to the rest of the nation. So again, thank you for having me, and I'll look forward to doing this again. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. We really appreciate your patience as we record remotely during these weeks. Please be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify, and please leave us a review or a rating on Apple Podcasts to give us your feedback. Stay healthy and we'll be back with you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Shrinco and Rachel Del Judas.

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