Lawmakers are outraged after reports that federal COVID-relief tax dollars may have gone to wealthy hospitals while avoiding helping out poor hospitals in recovering from the pandemic.
Republican members of Congress have raised this very question, asking why $17 billion of COVID-19 relief funds was used by hospitals with profits topping more than $53 billion, “while $35 billion went to hospitals that reported a loss of almost $130 billion.”
House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and Rep. Nick Langworthy, R-N.Y., launched an investigation this week into the Department of Health and Human Services over the matter, the latest of several questions about about how trillions of COVID-19 relief dollars were spent, or misspent.
“The federal spending spree during the COVID-19 pandemic produced historic amounts of waste and fraud, and American families are paying a steep price as a result,” Heritage Foundation Budget expert David Ditch told The Center Square. “The exact amount is impossible to calculate because so much was given in so many directions.”
