Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Ranking Member Steve Scalise (R-La.) today renewed his call for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to provide all data on nursing home deaths related to his deadly must admit order following a scathing report by the New York Attorney General’s office finding the state undercounted nursing home deaths by up to 50%.
“The report released today establishes that you ordered COVID-19 positive patients back into nursing homes, this order caused infections and fatalities, and you took concerted efforts to cover it up,” wrote Scalise. “Republicans on the Select Subcommittee and many others have been concerned about the impact COVID-19 is having in nursing homes, particularly in the five states—including New York—that defied Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) guidelines and instead issued unfounded ‘must-admit’ orders directing COVID-19 positive patients back into nursing homes. You have obstructed our efforts to gather facts.”
In June 2020, Select Subcommittee Republicans called on Governor Cuomo to provide information regarding his decision to mandate nursing homes and long-term care facilities to admit untested and contagious COVID-19 patients from hospitals and again renewed the request in July 2020. Select Subcommittee Republicans and the New York delegation also called on New York Attorney General Letitia James to investigate the origins of Governor Cuomo’s deadly nursing home order and the impact it had on the state’s elderly population.
Scalise added, “Your ongoing lack of transparency with Congress, the people of New York, and the country necessitates your immediate and thorough response to this and all previous letters … You know the number of nursing home residents who unfortunately passed away from COVID-19 but continue to refuse to provide it. This raises serious concerns and insinuates complicity in thousands of preventable deaths.”
Click here or see below for the full text of the letter.
January 28, 2021
The Honorable Andrew M. Cuomo
Governor of New York
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224
Dear Governor Cuomo:
Considering the shocking new report revealing you and your administration drastically undercounted nursing home deaths in New York state, we write to request your full and immediate response to our previous questions. To date, you and New York State Attorney General Letitia James have failed to respond to requests posed in three separate letters. The report released today establishes that you ordered COVID-19 positive patients back into nursing homes, this order caused infections and fatalities, and you took concerted efforts to cover it up.
Today, Attorney General James issued a report entitled “Nursing Home Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Among other things, this report concluded that the Cuomo Administration undercounted the total number of “resident deaths associated with nursing homes in New York…by approximately 50 percent.” This report requires your immediate attention and a full and immediate response to the numerous inquiries made by the Republicans on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis (Select Subcommittee).
Republicans on the Select Subcommittee and many others have been concerned about the impact COVID-19 is having in nursing homes, particularly in the five states—including New York—that defied Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) guidelines and instead issued unfounded “must-admit” orders directing COVID-19 positive patients back into nursing homes. You have obstructed our efforts to gather facts. Specifically, the Select Subcommittee has taken the following steps to uncover the truth, which you, in contrast, have sought to obfuscate:
- On June 11, 2020, the Select Subcommittee held a briefing entitled “The Devastating Impact Of The Coronavirus Crisis In America’s Nursing Homes.” During the briefing, Select Subcommittee Republicans examined the impacts of five governors’—New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, and yourself—orders directing COVID-19 patients into nursing homes, regardless of the home’s ability to properly quarantine and treat them.
- On June 15, 2020, Select Subcommittee Republicans sent a letter to you requesting information on your deadly nursing home order. To date, we have not received a direct response from you or your administration, though you are clearly aware of our investigation, as evidenced by your decision to hurl political slurs at us rather than simply answer our questions.
- On June 25, 2020, after receiving no response from your administration, Select Subcommittee Republicans—along with members of the New York Congressional Delegation—called on Attorney General James to investigate your Administration’s nursing home orders and provide us with information. Even though we never received a response, it now appears Attorney General James acted on our request and is investigating your dangerous policies.
- On July 9, 2020, after still no response from you or your administration, Select Subcommittee Republicans wrote again seeking the data and science behind the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) report shielding yourself from wrongdoing and blaming the hard-working front-line heroes of bringing COVID-19 into New York’s nursing homes. Likewise, we have received no direct response from your office.
Data and transparency drive an intelligent response to any pandemic but considering the novel nature of COVID-19, complete and accurate data is more important now than ever before. An Associated Press report confirmed what the Select Subcommittee said since June, you and your administration are actively covering up the total number of COVID-19 nursing home deaths in your state by not reporting nursing home residents that died in hospitals. Your ongoing lack of transparency with Congress, the people of New York, and the country necessitates your immediate and thorough response to this and all previous letters.
The report issued today by Attorney General James is distressing. Some shocking revelations include:
- “COVID-19 resident deaths associated with nursing homes in New York State appear to be undercounted by [NYSDOH] by approximately 50 percent.”
- “From March 25 [the date of your ‘must-admit’ order] to May 8 [the date the ‘must-admit’ order was rescinded], 6,326 hospital patients were admitted [into] 310 nursing homes.”
- “Data linking the number of nursing home deaths to the admissions policy contained in the March 25 guidance is obscured by that same guidance, which also prohibited nursing homes from requiring COVID-19 testing as a criterion for admission.”
- “4,000 nursing home deaths occurred after the issuance of the March 25 guidance, including some in 323 facilities that apparently had no reported COVID-19 infections before receiving admission or re-admission of hospital resident who had been diagnosed with COVID-19.”
- “[T]hese admissions may have contributed to increased risk of nursing home resident infection, and subsequent fatalities…”
Worst of all, during the recent New York State Assembly and Senate hearings on this very topic, New York Commissioner of Health, Dr. Howard Zucker, admitted that New York keeps a count of nursing home resident deaths at hospitals but declined to provide that number under oath. You know the number of nursing home residents who unfortunately passed away from COVID-19 but continue to refuse to provide it. This raises serious concerns and insinuates complicity in thousands of preventable deaths.
Today it is clear, you ordered COVID-19 positive patients back into nursing homes, this order caused infections and fatalities, and you took concerted efforts to cover it up.
For us to bring transparency and facts to the forefront and provide some semblance of closure to the thousands of families hurt by your recklessness, it is necessary you answer the questions Select Subcommittee Republicans have posed numerous times. As such, we request the following documents and information immediately but no later than February 4, 2021:
- The total number of COVID-19 related nursing home deaths, including deaths that occurred at the nursing home and deaths of a registered nursing home patient at a hospital, by day between January 1, 2020 and present.
- All State issued guidance, directives, advisories, or executive orders regarding hospital discharges to nursing homes or any and all other types of assisted living facilities, including those previously superseded, in chronological order.
- All underlying information, documents, and research used by the NYSDOH to draft the July 6, 2020, report entitled “Factors Associated with Nursing Home Infections and Fatalities in New York State During the COVID-19 Global Health Crisis.”
- All information, documents, and communications between the Office of the Governor and the NYSDOH regarding COVID-19 mitigation in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
- All information, documents, and communications between the NYSDOH and any and all of the State’s Nursing Home Administrators relating to the implementation of any state COVID-19 guidance, particularly the March 25 “must-admit” order, the NYSDOH report, or the methodology for calculating COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes.
In addition to these documents, please provide a staff-level briefing no later than February 4, 2021. This briefing may be conducted remotely for convenience and safety issues. To schedule the briefing or ask any follow-up or related questions, please contact Committee on Oversight and Reform staff at (202) 225-5074.
The Committee on Oversight and Reform is the principal oversight committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time” under House Rule X. Further, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis is empowered to investigate “preparedness for and response to the coronavirus crisis, including the planning for and implementation of testing, containment, mitigation, and surveillance activities.” Thank you in advance for your cooperation with this inquiry.
Sincerely,
Steve J. Scalise
Ranking Member
Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis
Hey NY Prosecute Cuomo for deaths & allies since March last year Or lose ALL
Host Fed Comm for same actions by Blue States.
Apply nationwide IF warranted
Don’t expect this crook to respond. He is the emperor of New York who is above criticism and accountability, or so he thinks.
Sounds like Cuomo will take a page out of the Marxist Democrat playbook that goes something like this: Denial, blame it on someone else, lie and give no answer whatsoever. He should be charged with manslaughter in NY. He cannot run to far…..the truth is right there for everyone to see. He put his political bias right out in front of the public that caused thousands of deaths of New Yorkers. People like him need to be investigated as both bullies and criminals.
Murderous Cuomo’s lack of response will require a direct confrontation by the People themselves- get the rope ready, and make an example of him.
About time Cuomo is held accountable for his behavior during the Covid-19 epidemic.
Thank you Andrew Cuomo for being an award winning author and actor. Why weren’t all opportunities taken advantage of such as the hospital ship or the Javitts Center? Oh that’s right you were too busy being famous. PEOPLE PAID WITH THEIR LIVES. Somehow I doubt that anything will happen to you. Maybe a MEA CULPA and some cash remuneration paid by the state. You are a bloated toad of a politician. Oh yes I forgot one last item. IT WAS TRUMP’S FAULT! CORRECT?
I’m glad Scalise isn’t letting go of this. Cuomo needs to take responsibility for his actions and I hope one of those responsibilities taken results in his stepping down.
Sounds like another Hitler in the making to me.
Pelosi wants Trump charged with Accessory to Murder. Cuomo is prime prime candidate for this along with negligence. Nothing will happen. It will be someone else’s fault. How sad.
Governor Coumo, like ALL Progressively Communist Democrats, lies and knows the Mainstream Media will NEVER CHALLENGE HIM on doing so! … SO WHAT’S NEW? … A Conservative says anything and the Mainstream Media fabricates a lie claiming that it’s the truth. Lying has become a way of life with Liberals!
Cuomo is quietly proud of reducing the excess population there! That is the Fauci-Gates vaccine ultimate goal. Eugenics. They all are applauding their great victory! All of them ‘playing God’. Unwise at least, but egos of those levels, hmmmm.
I want to know when Cuomo is going to be indicted for several thousand cases of second degree murder. But I am not holding my breath…
The amazing thing is Cuomo is up for re-election in 2022, and the trend indicate he will be. He also has asperations to run for President, which the way things are shaping up it wouldn’t surprise me.if he did got elected. . .
Cuomo will just lie has way through any questioning. Indict him for MURDER!!
All Democrat governors sacrificing the elderly to get death toll up to make Trump look bad. They didn’t use the makeshift hospitals that Trump had built for them or the ventilators that were sent there.How anybody can still stay a Democrat baffles my mind. I will not associate with any Democrat any more because they are ok with killing , lying , and cheating during the election, That is not the kind of people I want to call friends anymore. While I am vilified for being conservative and able to think for myself!
Never mind that the dems fostered the situation, early denials, promoting large group activities etc.
Not letting a good “crisis” go to waste, I see this as a dem ploy to thin the social security rolls of our seniors thus making room for their new dem voter block waiting at the border. DO THE MATH!
As corrupt, lying and totally treasonous as these “leaders” are, I defy ANYONE to tell me I am wrong on this.
Unfortunately, PRESIDENT TRUMP did come up short on one campaign promise.
SWAMP DRAINAGE. How about we just get on with a good old fashion PURGE. Open season, no bag limit. Wouldn’t that be fun? Sigh…
I’m done now, thanks for reading.
Have a nice day.
Socialit/dems MURDER how many innocent babies every year? Do you think killing elderly people bothers them? They want to kill everyone that disagrees with them, if you support PRESIDENT TRUMP you will be targetted, WATCH YOUR SIX!!
“WE THE PEOPLE” will not get to pick the candidates that WE want, the machines will “vote” for us again, we need to start recalling corrupt politicians and replace them with honorable and INTELIGENT AMERICANS, we need to stop listening to the PROPAGANDA coming from the social(ist) media and msm media, because all these dirtbags care about is protecting thier grossly overpaid jobs, just like the hollywierd elite and pro athletes that control the “airmaves” and bury the truth.
As a criminal, just think what you could get away with if those who witnessed your crime claimed they saw nothing? Better yet, what if law enforcement agencies refused to investigate your crime? You would become emboldened to commit more crimes! Why heck, criminal activity would rule your day! Friends, I’m describing today’s democrat party! I’m describing the cozy relationship between democrat party, the fraud national news media, and the DOJ.
Cuomo, buried his mistakes, so sad, the left is so incompetent !!!
Cuomo should go to prison for the lies and deceit he caused the poor older seniors and their families// This is a corrupt phony scuz ball and maybe New York will wake up one of these days//let me see now is New York being run by the liberals also known as DEMOCRATS//
Governor Cuomo is a living, constant demonstration that the left lives to attain power. They revel in it, they use it without any regard to benefiting anyone else besides themselves and those who tend to their continued power. There are no depths too deep for them to navigate in the defense of their power and privilege. This idiot feels he is part of a dynasty too solid to fail. Most megalomaniacs display these characteristics. Then they become a sizzle when they finally create their own undoing.
Nothing will get done about it.
I was just now reading in a magazine about the condition of Israel in the day of Zephaniah, the prophet of God. Political leaders were corrupt, cities were in major distress, and people’s hearts were far from God. Sound familiar? We live in those conditions now in our own country.
Do not forget that Cuomo had his mother removed from nursing home care and forced nursing home managers to take Covid positive patients.Murder,murder,murder.
CUOMO shud be prosecuted or SUED BIG BIG TIME for what he did to those folk!!
Hopefully S.Court will go after him
or the families will SUE that AH for what he did.
Amazing what these scumbags get away with-Maybe
IN the day of Judgement He pays for it –
Like Sharon below says it right – but not enuf
Our country is worse with what is tolerated and Anti Biblical
Having read and studied this past year Psalms thru Isaiah
this country is amazingly being held back from God and
His mercy which will not last forever – there will be a day of reckoning.
We that are right with Him will just have to wait till then.
Another thing also
There has to be some way to keep the WALL going
75 million Trump voters chip in to a FUND set up by a
wise and reputable system to handle those funds and we the people
will pay for it and tell Dementia Smoe to stick it – now we do it.
Mr Trump shud be contacted on this and see what he says
Somehow this has to be done – keep the next batch of ??
coming and trying to get and make things worse for us.
Whitmer(a junior clone of cuomo)did the exact same thing in Michigan . Put virus patients in nursing homes and killed many. Also mimicked cuomo in banning hydroxicloriquine(sp). Both of them should be investigated and charged criminally.
Will the Left demand he give back his Emmy Award for his failures?
kamakazi como – disgraceful! then he and the clan always try to blame Trump and his supporters. grow up and learn to take the blame for your mistakes,
So what will the Republicans do if Cuomo does not comply? Prosecute him? Sorry but I’ve been waiting for that time that they are able to prosecute a single powerful Democrat who have been known to be guilty. Republicans’ words are just that, all words.
What Cuomo did and tried to get away could only happen in a country that has taken away the dignity of those who are aging and disabled. If you have a loved one in a nursing home, visit often; his neglect and charade is common in that environment. Don’t just wag your finger at him. Take your duty to honor and respect your loved ones seriously. Never give up or let your guard over them down. Goons like Cuomo take advantage.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
He needs to answer just like anyone else.
He committed GENOCIDE!
The Dim way, do something totally stupid and lie about it. Jail time is needed for the arrogant POS!!!
I expect Cuomo’s motive was more sinister. Given that many seniors are more conservative than younger folks, and therefore would generally be predisposed to vote Republican, Cuomo’s efforts may have simply been motivated by his political self-interest in “culling” the population of non-Demshevik voters before the November election.
The left it seems is as adept at killing the elderly as they are unborn babies. Good thing to know that when I die I wont have to be in contact with any of the murderous scum on the left as they will be welcomed in hell.
Cuomo’s incompetence is only surpassed by the incredible gullibility of his constituents.
I cannot understand how so many people can be blind to his massive ego, lies, and machinations.
Yet these same people saw a horrible human being in the last potus?
Cuomo pure and simple is a murderer and so arrogant he feels he doesn’t need to answer for his actions. President Trump was so responsive to his requests; ventilators, Javitts Center and a hospital ship. They were mostly empty.
Cuomo at the very least needs to resign or start the petition to be recalled like the California governor. We need to systematically remove these radical scum from office one by one!!
Has any news reporter asked Governor Cuomo why he did not fully utilize the hospital ship or Javits Center for the elderly?
Between the demonrat state commie czars Cuomo, Newsom, Whitman, Wolf, et.al. and now the addition of the consolidated confusticated swamp dwelling commie Congress and the [un]unifying unjustifiable UNCONSTITUTIONAL rantings/executive orders of Peking Poobah Biden and laughing hyena Harris we can only hope and pray that God will continue to bless America.
Cumoo knows u replubicans wont do anything that’s why they give no info. Look at bengazee u failed 2 get info. The gun running 2 Mexico by Obama. U did nothing. They know u are spinless jellyfish. No one respect someone who doesn’t stand up 2 bullies. Not even your own party.
Hey, he’s just using Hellary’s comment for Bengazi, “Who Cares”. Nuff said. Nothing to see here just keep on moving on to the other expihits ( or however you spell it). I would have liked it if he had said he screwed up, but even then, all he did was sign death orders. We’re starting to look more and more like those dudes in Germany during WW2. You would think we were above that, but I guess not. Sad, Very Sad. When will people be held accountable for the deaths they caused?
I’m beginning to think that President Trump worked entirely on his own for the American people. The swamp is full of both parties accepting lobbyists money because the American people just don’t pay you enough to survive. Try surviving on the little Social Security check we get reluctantly from the thieves in Washington. A lot of big talk, no follow through because no one has a hair to follow through and just may be found guilty themselves accepting bribes. I’ve been a Republican for years, but no more. I have faithfully voted for representatives who say one thing and do another or worse, do nothing at all but get paid. Do you know how disenchanting that is? We are being led by liars, thieves, cheats and unholy evil!