Senate Passes The COVID-19 3.5 Emergency Relief Bill

Published in Member Communities on April 21, 2020

This afternoon, the Senate passed, by unanimous consent, the $484 billion agreement to deliver more pandemic aid to small businesses and hospitals in addition to federal, state, and local coronavirus testing. The House is expected to return Thursday for an in-person vote.

The measure — originally meant to serve as an “interim” small business fix before lawmakers embarked on negotiations for another trillion-dollar-plus relief package — will provide $350 billion for the depleted Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), according to a summary of the legislation. Click here to see the full bill language. Separately, the bill increases the authorization level for the program by $310 billion.

Specifics:

• $310 billion unrestricted for PPP
• $60 billion in PPP set aside for smaller institutions (banks and credit unions)
  • $30 billion for assets less than $10 billion
  • $30 billion for assets between $10 billion and $50 billion
• $50 billion for EIDL loans
• $10 billion for EIDL Advance grants 
• $2.1 billion for SBA administrative expenses

Health

• $75B for hospitals (same language as PHSSEF from CARES)
• $25B for testing [$11B of this will be distributed to states; the rest will go to CDC, BARDA, FQHC, NIH, NCI (they are doing the serology work), and others for research, development, and deployment of testing.]

This is great news for DMEPOS suppliers as it means additional funding availabilities. We’ve heard from many of you that have not received PPP funding from your bank. If you haven’t received any PPP dollars yet, it is recommended that you reach out to your credit union or bank this week to ensure you are first in line to receive these dollars.