Casey proposes education benefits for workers involved in COVID-19 response
Sen. Bob Casey said Tuesday that he expects to introduce legislation this week that would create a GI Bill-style education benefit for an array of health-care and other workers who are involved in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Casey, a Democrat, said that situation is “nothing less than a war” and “these frontline health-care workers are soldiers on a battlefield” as he outlined his proposal to reporters. He added that the pressures and risks they take deserve not just the gratitude of the public, but should also be “tangible, it should be something that they can literally take with them.”
He calls the proposal the Pandemic Responder Service Award Act.
“They’re putting themselves at risk, in many cases putting their families at risk,” Casey said. “And the risk can be everything from contracting the virus and recovering, with all of the burden that carries, or going through a terrible health scare, where they’re on the edge of death, if they survive. And then ultimately, of course, the ultimate threat to them is the threat to their lives.”
Casey said the language of the proposal is still being drafted ahead of being introduced in the Senate sometime this week. The people who’d be eligible include emergency medical personnel and some of those who provide COVID-19-related care at doctors’ offices, health-care centers and clinics. The assistance would also be available to people who work in nursing homes and similar facilities and in behavioral and mental health.
He didn’t have an exact number of people who would be able to use the money, but estimated it would be in the “tens of millions.”
People who work in health and patient care at hospitals – including janitorial and food-service workers – could also use the benefits, as could people who work in home health care, including home-health aides and personal-care attendants.
He compared his proposal to the GI Bill, which was first following World War II. That measure allowed many veterans to become the first members of their families to attend college and gave them entrée to the middle class.
The benefit the senator said his legislation would provide is for four years’ worth of an award that is equivalent to the average cost of in-state tuition at a public higher-education institution – $9,970 per year in 2020.
Workers would be eligible on a percentage scale depending on how long they were at risk. Those who spent at least six months under those conditions or who were hospitalized with COVID-19 for any length of time would receive the full benefit.
Casey said that money could go toward paying off existing student debt; paying for additional education that could include on-the-job and technical training as well as attendance at colleges or universities; or for putting aside money for savings, covering up to $1,000 a year for emergency costs or for use by dependents.
“We have to have a response that is commensurate (with) or at least begins to approximate the sacrifice made by these front-line workers, in this case health-care workers,” he said.