AHA Urges Congress to Extend Paycheck Protection Program, Maintain Flexibility

December 18, 2020

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker
U.S. House of Representatives
U.S. Capitol Building, H-222
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Speaker Pelosi:

On behalf of our nearly 5,000 member hospitals, health systems and other health care organizations, our clinician partners – including more than 270,000 affiliated physicians, 2 million nurses and other caregivers – and the 43,000 health care leaders who belong to our professional membership groups, the American Hospital Association (AHA) thanks you for your continued efforts to support communities through legislation extending the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

Nearly 1,000 hospitals have used the PPP thus far to help maintain vital health care services to their communities. We welcome the extension of the program as proposed in the Emergency Coronavirus Relief Act of 2020, but urge you to maintain eligibility at the current level of 500 or fewer employees for those organizations who need additional support through a second loan. The proposed changes in eligibility will put the program out of reach for a significant number of hospitals even as the pandemic continues to take a heavy toll on America’s health care infrastructure.

There is still grave public concern that the risk of COVID-19 infection is high and many states continue to report increasing cases of COVID-19. These factors have led to historic reductions in hospital inpatient and outpatient volumes, which have in turn driven drastic reductions in revenues and margins – all of which can impact hospitals’ and health systems’ abilities to serve their communities.

We appreciate your continued efforts to provide additional resources to those on the front lines as we face another surge in this pandemic. Maintaining eligibility for a second round of loans to hospitals currently in the PPP is important to help relieve the unprecedented financial pressure faced by our nation’s hospitals and health systems.

Sincerely,

/s/

Thomas P. Nickels
Executive Vice President