Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Thursday called for a "Marshall Plan" for the nation's hospitals and healthcare system, saying there will be a "dire situation" if members of Congress don't act now.
"There are not enough ventilators," the New York Democrat said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," while comparing the effort needed to the American initiative passed after World War II to restore Europe. "The president finally, we asked him to do this several days ago, invoked the Defense Production Act, allowing him to command the factories to make more. Is someone implementing that? We don't have enough beds."
Getting the Army Corps of Engineers to build temporary buildings with beds is important and "we should probably use some of the Veterans Administration beds that are not being used right now," said Schumer, adding that there are not currently enough swabs to conduct tests.
Meanwhile, Congress must undertake quick, bold action to pass a plan costing upward of $1 trillion to legislation that will get cash to Americans who now are out of work and money and loans to the nation's businesses.
Schumer said he and other Democrats are proposing a massive expansion on unemployment insurance, and also to make it easier to get.
"What we Democrats in the Senate are proposing, and I know House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is for this because we're consulting on everything, is that we get unemployment insurance where you get paid if you get laid off," said Schumer. "You get full salary. You get it quickly. The application process is very, very simple."
Schumer said he also agrees with the idea of bridge loans to help small businesses get through the duration of the crisis, but he thinks the loans should not be forgiven unless the companies keep all their employees.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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