Billions of dollars in federal pandemic relief was sent to hospitals throughout the United States that did not need the funding, while other hospitals failed to meet their needs, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Washington distributed pandemic aid by using average hospital revenue as a proxy for size in order to calculate need, while not relying on COVID-19 caseloads, the outlet reported on Dec. 6.
The Provider Relief Fund, which was created by Congress in 2020, was designed to assist hospitals during the pandemic, but facilities ended up filled with patients who were sick from the virus, while refusing non-life threatening surgeries that normally provided revenue….