PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — An $8.3 billion stimulus package that passed the U.S. House over the weekend is waiting for action from the Senate. It's the second of two bills aimed at attacking the coronavirus pandemic, and there will be more coming.
Montgomery County Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, a Democrat, says the bill, which offers free coronavirus testing and expands paid sick leave and unemployment insurance, is a step in the right direction, but she says more needs to be done to avoid what could be a nasty recession.
"We have to make sure that second quarter, when we know people are going to be reducing their consumption dramatically across this country, that we do everything we can to support businesses, so they can shut down temporarily but then re-open, be capitalized and re-open," Dean said.
Democratic Chester County Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan points out the bills passed the House with broad bipartisan support with every member of the Pennsylvania delegation voting in favor. But she says it doesn't end here.
"You know, we've first taken care of the disease, we've then taken care of individual people, and now we're taking care of small and mid to large sized businesses," she said. "And will that be the end-all-be-all solution? Absolutely not."
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said he has major concerns about the House bill that still need to be addressed.
"The idea is somebody who's in these circumstances is not going to be able to work. I support the idea that there be a safety net for them, but the mechanism matters," he said.
As the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise, the Republican senator said his focus now is getting essential test kits for COVID-19 across the state.
"My main concern has been gearing up and scaling up our ability to test people," he said in a meeting with the head of clinical laboratories at the Lehigh Valley Health Network on Tuesday.
"Testing and getting data from tests, it seems to me, are absolutely essential to understanding the nature of the problem: Who needs to be quarantined? Who doesn't need to be quarantined?"
Toomey says some road blocks have been removed."The hospitals in Pennsylvania who have the ability and the desire to develop their own test systems, for the most part, that is underway. But I want to be clear: It does not mean overnight we are going to have unlimited tests," he said.Dr. Ronald Walsh, of the Lehigh Valley Healthcare Network, says Pennsylvanians should take extra precautions, because this is far from peaking."Things will probably get a little worse, but it's hard to exactly say when that peak will be," he said. "We are all working to flatten the curve. And that's to decrease the height of that peak or have it be a more gradual peak."Toomey said more testing materials will be available in the next day or so.
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KYW Newsradio's Kim Glovas and Jim Melwert contributed to this report.
