Dear Neighbor,

Late Friday, the House of Representatives passed a critical, bipartisan bill to help our communities prepare for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.

This bill anticipates the upcoming challenges we will all face and provides the support our communities will need.  By looking ahead, not behind, listening to the scientists and the public health experts, and drawing on the input from our communities about what our families will need during this time of uncertainty, this bill puts the security of our families first – our economic security, our food security, and our heath security.

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act will:

• Ensure free testing for coronavirus: The Families First Coronavirus Response Act ensures that all individuals who need a test, including those with private insurance, Medicare Advantage or Original Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, VA, FEHBP, and TRICARE, as well as the uninsured, will have access at no cost. 

• Provide economic security:

  • Paid emergency leave: The Families First Coronavirus Response Act provides two weeks of paid sick leave and up to three months of paid family and medical leave. 

  • Enhanced Unemployment Insurance: The Families First Coronavirus Response Act gives states the resources and flexibility to provide unemployment benefits to laid off and furloughed workers, as well as to those workers who exhaust their allotted paid leave.  This measure also provides additional funding to help the hardest-hit states immediately and in the future if conditions worsen.

• Provide food security: The Families First Coronavirus Response Act includes more than $1 billion to provide food to low-income pregnant women and mothers with young children, help local food banks, and feed low-income seniors.  It ensures that students who depend on schools and childcare for free and reduced-priced meals continue to have access to nutritious foods during closures.  And it provides women, infants, and children with the flexibility to access food and infant formula without having to make unnecessary or unsafe visits to clinics.

• Increase health security: The Families First Coronavirus Response Act increases the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP), which the federal government provides to state and territorial Medicaid programs.  This will prevent states from cutting benefits, reducing their Medicaid rolls, or imposing greater costs on enrollees.

Before the House voted on a bipartisan basis to pass this bill, I joined Speaker Pelosi and three of my colleagues to talk about what the Families First Coronavirus Response Act will help us do.   You can see my remarks in the link above.  The Senate is expected to take up this legislation when it reconvenes this week, and the President has already said he will sign it.  I look forward to seeing that happen soon.

We are already discussing and working on the next legislation to address COVID-19, and I anticipate another bill in the near future.

We all have many questions about the days and weeks ahead.  To hear and help address these concerns, I will host a telephone town hall on COVID19 tomorrow evening with representatives from Harris County Public Health, the Harris County Office of Emergency Management, and the Houston Health Department.

You can RSVP for telephone town hall on Monday, March 16 from 7–8pm here.

It is essential now that we look forward and that we collectively take steps to minimize the spread of coronavirus across our community and our country.

I am honored to represent and to serve you.  And I will be here with a dedicated team to work for you throughout this pandemic to help in every way we can.   Please do not hesitate to call us.  That’s what we are here for.

Sincerely,