Host joining us from kensington, maryland, Marilyn Weber serafini, the Health Project director at the bipartisan policy center, here to talk about the Coronavirus Impact on health policy. Good morning to you. Guest good morning. Host a little bit first of all about the Health Project there. How are you looking at coronavirus from your perspective . 2 so at guest so at the bipartisan policy center, we look at a lot of health care issues, so we are looking at the lens of coronavirus. We have been doing quite a little bit of work on Rural Health Care. We are kicking up a project on Haverhill Health care. On Behavioral Health care, meaning both Substance Abuse and disorders. We do work with chronic illness and we are focusing on preparedness and Public Health as well. We run the gamut of what we are looking at in terms of health care and everything now of course, we are looking at through the lens of covid19. Host beef because you followed elka for a long time because you followed health care for a long time, what do you think about the pandemic and the exposure of the Current Health care system . Guest there are a lot of challenges we have known about in the health care system, and this has really brought some of them to light. I will tell you about two things in particular. Since we just released a report about will health care, it first of all has highlighted the problem of Rural Health Care because everything has been made worse. Everything we are talking about telehealthn terms of and people cannot go to their doctors physically, so washington, congress, the department of health and human action tos taking make it easier for people to see their doctors. These are challenges that people in Rural America face every day. If we look at what the recent polls are telling us, it is very interesting. Health care was at the top of the priority list for voters before covid19 really struck with force. But what we were talking about mostly was the design of our health care system. The we going to repeal the Affordable Care act, or were we going to significantly change it in some way, as Bernie Sanders had wanted to do, through a singlepayer, medicare for all type system . Were we going to do Something Like joe biden wanted to that means that people do not have coverage, and they cannot afford health care. Even if they still are able to get cobra health care coverage, or they are able to buy into the marketplace plans that were created by the Affordable Care act, things change. And it was a big question of affordability. And this is what people are really caring about now. When we are talking about health all of a in addition, sudden the economy is also at the forefront. So we are talking about the basics. Economy, jobs, affordability. So you are seeing action in congress particularly sending its concern and funding as health care over the last few weeks with certain bills. What do you think about the congressional aspect, the backandforth going on as far as funding specifically for health care purposes, and does that change the larger discussion on the state of health care . Yes. We are talking right now about doing all of those things to make it easier for people to access their health care. First of all, we are talking about enormous chunks of money that are going into the health care system. A lot of that money is going to hospitals. Hospitals across the country have stopped elective procedures and this is really where they make their money. And im not talking about cosmetic surgery or things that are on peoples wish lists. I am talking talking about things a kid replacement and Knee Replacement and surgeries that can wait. My own mom has had to postpone her hip replacement a couple of months already. And she is in pain. So hospitals are losing money because they cannot do these havings and they are added expenses because of covid19. Especially those in the urban centers like new york city and new orleans and some of the other big centers where we have seen a big crush of coronavirus cases. They need to spend the extra money to get the equipment that they need. So a lot of this m i