Transcripts For KPIX 60 Minutes 20240713

That if government aid doesnt reach their small and midsized farms soon, it will make it nearly impossible for american farming to stay in the family. Its just hard, because ticking i worry about them all the time. Your good cholesterol is nice and high. Elizabeth ellis is a Nurse Practitioner. Come on. When we met her, she was tearing around her east texas farm with her fourlegged side arm named pistol. Social distancing is built into the landscape here and enforced by barbed wire, but the pandemic has reached elliss sparsely populated county, too. Im so sorry. And she finds herself administering covid tests ticking im lesley stahl. Im bill whitaker. Im anderson cooper. Im Sharyn Alfonsi. Im scott pelley. Those stories, tonight, on 60 minutes. ticking this portion of 60 minutes is sponsored by progressive insurance. Save when you bundle auto, home, or motorcycle insurance. Visit progressive. Com. Scott pelley as may begins, millions of americans delete another month of calendar events for the job they never expected to lose. They made plans; graduates entering the hottest economy in a generation, entrepreneurs with their dream in sight and workplace veterans tuning their retirement. 30 million americans have filed for unemployment in six weeks. The people youre about to meet signed up last month for a philadelphia online job fair. It was just four hours of local businesses with open positions but 1300 people waited in chat rooms for a chance. They wonder how fast the economy should open and find themselves in a strange place, with hours on their hands and time running out. Philadelphiaarea residents can meet potential employers tomorrow at a virtual job fair. Courtney clifton i actually got the information off of the news. Pelley Courtney Clifton logged on and applied for work in a call center, a long drop from the Catering Company she built on a dream. Clifton amuse bouche cuisine was started in about 2015, right after i graduated culinary school. We started out doing small parties and doing the traditional catering events. Our client list has grown exponentially. Pelley and since covid19 . Clifton whew. Calling and emailing. We have to cancel. We have to postpone. We started losing events like that. Pelley and what happened to your business . Clifton we went from six employees to two. And now we have none. Pelley her husband is still working in home healthcare. Courtney applied for a government emergency loan but that hasnt come through. The largest bailout in history has lurched forward. The Small Business administrations paycheck protection bailout was partly cleaned out by big business. Government websites have been overwhelmed. Clifton the last time i checked, it was in red at the top of the page. And it said, we are unable to offer any information at this me please check back later. Pelley but there is no later for your employees. Clifto unfortunately, not. I had tears in my eyes when i had to tell my righthand woman, who is also a family member, that her only source of income i i there was nothing that i could do. Pelley have you been able to get unemployment . Clifton i have applied. But i havent received a response yet. Pelley state unemployment offices are jammed. Nationwide, in march, only 14 of new applicants had received their first checkaccording to the Public Policy research group, the century foundation. What about your stimulus check . You should have 1,200 coming from the government. Clifton yeah, thats something that i was definitely looking forward to. And my husband actually has an app that allows you to see your mail thats coming to you. So, ive seen a picture of the envelope that has the check. But i actually havent received it yet in the mail. Pelley how long before youre broke . Clifton now. Pelley tim yabor also heard about last months job fair on the news. Yabor my boss said, do you have a couple minutes to talk on zoom . And thats when it happened. Pelley in those couple of minutes on zoom, yabor, 55, was lai convention center. When was the last time you were unemployed . Yabor i was never unemployed. This is the first time. Pelley yabors wife still has a job in insurance. And shes working from home. What keeps you up at night . Yabor that my kids will ask me for money that, before, i would just give them money. I worry that we can make our mortgage, that we can have food. And, you know, pay our bills. Pelley have you thought of going to the food bank . Yabor thought and did. I passed by a food bank. I wasnt as bad as the people that were standing in line. They needed it more than i did. Pelley this was the need in philadelphia on thursday. For the pandemic, the city helped set up 40 food lines, open every monday and thursday 32,000 boxes of groceries a week. Some of those in line these days are the kind of workers Robin Barbacane has helped in her long career. Robin barbacane im a Human Resources executive. So, ive coached hundreds of people, maybe thousands of people, through the process. Pelley what is your advice . Barbacane typically what i tell them, the first thing, is to, you know, realize that you have to look at this as a full time job and you have to work at it every single day. Pelley have you been able to take your own advice . Barbacane ive tried. There are good days and there are bad days. Pelley the bad days started with her layoff in march. She applied at the online job fair for the kind of positions she held a decade ago. What does a bad day look like . Barbacane well, im a mom. So, a bad day cant really be a bad day. You have to you know, you have to kind of be the rock to hold the family together. You have to hold everything together for your kids. So, theres not a lot of time to take a moment. Pelley her family would feel more confident, she told us, if politicians showed more leadership and less partisan bickering. Barbacane the kids are watching. And, you know, theyre watching the adults lose their minds and go crazy and fight over ridiculous things. And its awful. Its really hard to try to think that, you know, whats the future gonna be for our kids . Pelley and will that future be undermined, she wonders, if the economy doesnt open, and soon. Barbacane definitely, we have to balance Public Safety and health. But at the same token, we have to look at whats gonna happen to our economy. And, you know, are we gonna completely cripple our society from being in financial ruin . I think thats really, really scary, to be part of that and be caught up in that, and worry about whats gonna happen to your family. Pelley many families were anticipating graduse sending sons and daughters into the best economy in a generation. Reid henzel graduated in december with a job in hand which vanished. Are you back with your parents . Reid henzel so im actually living with my girlfriends parents right now and with her and her family. Pelley whats it like living there . Henzel ive been trying to work around the house, help as much as i possibly can so im avoiding that freeloading. Pelley nearly four Million Students are due to graduate this spring, into an economy that shrank at a rate of nearly 5 in the first quarter, the worst since the great recession. Henzel everyday its going on to linkedin or indeed or glassdoor. Reaching out, having a cover letter ready, a resume already made up. Pelley how many have you applied for . Henzel around 25 or so. Pelley and you have answers from how many . Henzel zero. Pelley wall street and government economists estimate the economy will shrink, in the second quarter, at a rate near 40 , rivaling the great depression. Erin mccahill sometimes you get up and you have, you know, three, four, sometimes seven or eight, were not going to move forward with you in this position. We have someone else whos more qualified. Stephen Erin Mccahill was director of sales for a major telecom. Shes back in the job market after running her own consulting shop. She took a shot at philadelphias online job fair. Mccahill each company that was part of the job fair had a window, a room, what they called it. So you could go into the room, see what jobs they had open, and decide to get in line. Once you got connected with a recruiter, you had about four minutes to tell them who you were, what you were looking for, and learn a little bit about their company. Pelley they gave you a time limit . Mccahill yes. And you could see the clock counting down. Alo foll on our conversation. Pelley her goal is ten applications a day. Mccahill some positions that ive applied fth why iplying j. Pelley bause . Ill im overq pelley you would take those jobs . Mccahill yes. I have to do what i have to do right now. Pelley especially since neither Unemployment Insurance nor the stimulus check have come through. We were told that help was on the way. Mccahill i havent gotten it yet. Pelley the u. S. Treasury says about 80 of households have been issued stimulus checks including the home of Saleena Temple who had been a paralegal in law offices for 20 years. Saleena temple i got a telephone call from the office manager. She said that the office would be closing indefinitely. And that basically was it. Two weeks after that, i received a letter that my Health Insurance would be terminated at the end of march. Pelley do you have any Health Issues . Temple i do, yes, yes. I have suffered with low iron for a long time. And it caused damage to my heart. And i actually was in the hospital in november. Pelley nearly 13 million Health Insurance with their jobs according to research by the Economic Policy institute. Temple i cannot get the medicine because i dont have Health Insurance. I cant follow up with my primary doctor because i cant pay for a visit. Pelley despite heart trouble she was working full time and studying. Shes three classes away from an m. B. A. Her son is graduating too, but tuition bills have left her with loans to pay. What do your student debts come to . Temple they are somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000. That includes my sons education as well. Pelley how are you gonna make those payments . Temple i have no idea. It actually terrifies me. I try not to focus on that because the thought process can be really dark during those times. Pelley youre the first person in your family to graduate college. And now your son and daughter have gone on to higher education. W doesmerican drm feel temple it doesnt feel like a dream at all. Clifton i used to go to the Grocery Store maybe once a week. And i would spend anywhere between 100 to 150 during my trip. Now its its a challenge because i spend about 20, 25 a week as opposed to 100, 150. And i make it work. I miss shopping. Pelley Courtney Clifton, the Catering Company owner, hasnt heard back on that call center job. Like the others who spoke with us, she longs to know what her new world will look like and when she will see it. Clifton i thank god that my husband has a job that will allow us to at least pay our rent. But thats it. My business was my sole income. Pelley how do you imagine your catering business coming back . Clifton im not sure because not only am i gonna have to wait until they open up the state, which is this, you know, so many steps plan. Once they open the state, then i have to wait for people to feel comfortable enough to start going out in public again. And then i have to wait until people are comfortable enough to start planning events with people gathering together. And the only thing keeping me going, my husband and my faith in god. ticking cbs money watch, sponsored by lincoln financial, helping you create a secure financial future. Good evening. Aprils job report is expected to show the highest Unemployment Rate on record. Ox dental petroleum, gold medal and disney report earnings this week. Warren buffett says the coronavirus cannot stop america despite huge losses. This is cbs news. Lesley stahl over the coming months, the government will disburse a 19 billion bailout package for farmers hurt by the coronavirus pandemic. To understand who would benefit from this new bailout, we took a close look at another recent bailout for farmers the 28 billion program, administered without congressional oversight over the last two years and meant to offset damages from President Trumps trade war with china. We wanted to know where did the money go . Well as it turns out, most of it bypassed the countrys traditional small and medium sized farms that were battered by the loss of their export market and which are now being hit with severe losses from the coronavirus pandemic. South dakota is soybean, corn and wheat country, and right now its reeling. Bob kuylen if people are are really wanting to jump off a building about what the stock market is doing, weve been doing that for three years now. We did everything right. We raised great crops. But were still losing our rear ends because of whats happening with with the sanctions. And now with the coronavirus, its gonna be another hit, without a doubt. Dou sombke so imagine three years ago, you lost 30 of your paycheck and then the next year, you lost another 30 . I mean, thats the pain were feeling. Stahl doug sombke and bob ylen oversee the farmers unions in north and south dakota with more than 50,000 farmers and livestock producers. The average farm here is less than 1,500 acres. Can you hear me . Is this okay, this level . We interviewed them remotely. What is happening to your farmers with this virus . Sombke its just accelerating the problem. And we are not being able to sell because everyones worried if the plants are gonna stay open. Stahl and restaurants closing and. Sombke yeah, yeah. The food is starting to back up. The freezers are getting full. Restaurants arent buying. So yeah, its really becoming a huge issue for us. Stahl with restaurants and schools closed across the country, their markets are shrinking. Its adding to already rising debt and farm bankruptcies aggravated by the trade war with china. They told us the bailout, called the Market Facilitation Program that began in 2018, helped them survive the last two years but didnt come close to covering most of their members losses or their own. How did the tariffs, the sanctions affect you . Kuylen about 70,000 a year i lost in the last couple of years. Sombke on our farm, weve lost in the last three years, roughly 125,000 to 200,000 a year. Stahl but what about the bailouts . You had two rounds. This was supposed to tide you over. Sombke yeah. Stahl did it . Sombke well, it made the banker happy. It didnt do anything for me. Stahl weve seen reports of suicides going up among farmers. Kuylen oh, yeah. I know personally families that are suffering through that. The, the stresses out there now, its just theyre out there for four or five generations of their family and theyre the ones that lost the farm . What do you think thats gonna do to their their mind . Sombke yeah a lot of depression. And just this past year in my hometown, weve weve lost three young men to suicide. Its its just hard, lesley, because. You see these young guys coming up and, you know, and and youve coached them in baseball. You you you have had hopes that youre glad they stayed in the community and then you end up seeing this happen. And, uh, none of their fault. Not any of their fault. And its hard. And i worry about my kids. My my sons are on the farm and i worry about them all the time. Stahl after President Trump imposed the stringent tariffs in 2018, china struck back hard here in the farm belt, imposing its own steep tariffs especially impacting soybeans our largest agricultural export to china, and sending Commodity Prices into a freefall. The administration tapped a depressionera fund for agriculture and provided 28 billion for farmers, almost 3 billion to purchase surpluses for food banks and other nutrition programs, and more than 24 billion in direct aid to farmers. We will ensure that our farmers get the relief they need. And very, very quickly. Its a good time to be a farmer, were going to make sure of that. Stahl but so far, most of the money has gone to the biggest farms; one third of it to just 4 of them. Even farm owners who personally report nearly 1 million in income per year are eligible. We spoke to agriculture secretary sonny perdue in march in the early days of the pandemic before social distancing was the norm. Bailout and the payments to faers that were based on the amount of crops produced in 2018; and by planted acreage in 2019. Sonny perdue its not a welfare program. Its not a subsidy. Its not a pricesupport system. It is a marketdamage system. A disruption there. Stahl these payments are disproportionately going to the big, wealthy farms at the expense of the smaller farms where the suffering is. Perdue the fact is, lesley, most of our production in america is done by large farmers. Thats just the way it happens. These are these are awards based on the production. And, uh, but we did try. Weve got payment limits that cut people off. Stahl but the payment limits dont always cut people off. The limit, or the cap, designed specifically for the biggest operators, used to be 125,000 per person or legal entity. But that was raised last year to 250,000. But why did you double the cap . The limit . Perdue we saw the amount of trade damage that was happening here. The need was out there in order to keep these farmers where they could continue. Not be made whole, but to continue to survive to farm again the next year. Ken cook they made changes for the very largest farmers. If youre a small farmer, you dont have to worry about the limits. Youre gonna not come close to hitting them. But large farmers, they changed it so that a husband could get 250,000. His wife could get 250,000. Stahl ken cook is the president of the Environmental Working Group thats been tracking farm subsidies for decades and now the direct payments to farmers under the Trump Administrations bail out. The u. S. D. A. Data cook obtained through a search of public records show frs way over the cap. They do it by exploiting permissive eligibility rules that the administration adopted from Congress Farm bills. Those rules allow big farms to collect maximum payments on behalf of not just the farmer, but many others. Cook cousins, uncles, aunts. Stahl so lets say i have a cousin whos a farmer. And im a reporter in new york. I sit here. I dont do any farming. But im a cousin. Cook thats right. Stahl i can get money . Cook you can get money. Maybe you have to make a phone call a couple times a year to find out what. Stahl but i dont have to even go there . Cook no, you dont have to live on the farm or visit the farm. These payments arent just going to farmers who are out there climbing up on a tractor every morning. These payments are going to people who are living in the middle of new york city because they happen to have an ownership interest in the farm. Stahl many farms today have investors, call them absentee owners, who also collect bailout money. When we checked, we found hundreds of recipients living in big cities including new york city, miami, san francisco. Among them, a banker, an architect, a composer, a classical musician. Not south dakotas doug sombkes idea of a farmer. Sombke i mean, my sons are the ones out here working. Theyre the ones that should get the money. If youve got dirt under your fingernails, youre the ones that should be getting the money, nobody else. Stahl but doesnt the money come to the farm . Sombke no, it can go anywhere. They can distribute it as the Corporation Sees fit, right . Cook if youre a very large farm operation and youre eligible for these payments, the most important tool as a farmer is not whats in your machine shed. Its the lawyer you hire to set up a paper farm thats designed to absorb as much federal money, as much trump payment, as possible. Stahl and there are lawyers who are documenting these family owners . Cook there are lawyers who specialize in helping big farms maximize their payments from the department of agriculture. Its an industry in and of itself. And they do very well. Stahl lawyers like robert serio who for years have been making the most of the loopholes in farm subsidy policy, and now the Trump Administrations bailout. Do you know the nickname that you have . Robert serio uh, not really. Stahl its loophole. They call you loophole. Serio somebody else called me the cap doctor. Stahl oh, the cap doctor . Serio the cap doctor. Stahl serio is based here in clarendon, arkansas, a tiny town with one sit down restaurant where he knows everybody. Serio how many farmers you have in here today . Stahl he has more than 250 clients in 25 states that he says are all actively engaged in farming. Serio represents the deline farming operations. They include three partnerships that u. S. D. A. Data show are registered to the same address in missouri, which in total collected more than 5 million in the bailout so far, way more than the cap. Serio these are not loopholes. They are designed regulations. All i did was follow a trail that the government laid out for me. Stahl well, no one is saying its illegal. Nobody. Serio no. Stahl if that farm is a partnership, how much can they get if there are 20 people in the partnership . Do they still only get 250,000 . Serio no, maam. Stahl they get 250,000 times 20, right . Serio if, if they earn it. If that land that theyre farming earns that money. Rs lets sa ee d he, theyn get s he s omd see me. Ecomicarming oti very s what are you what do you do . What do you advise me to do . Serio first thing i would do, ask you f you were married. And if your answer is yes, i would say, then you need to form a husband and wife partnership. That would be my first advice. Secondly if youre even bigger than that, i might ask you, do you have any children who are working on the farm . And if that answer is yes, then i would tell them how to be able to use that child to enhance that the cash flow for that Partnership Im going to form. And youre farming operation will be have more eligibility and enhance your cash flow, make you more profitable. Everybodyll benefit from that. Stahl whats the Largest Partnership you ever formed . Serio 66 partners. Stahl 66. Serio yeah. Stahl thats a lot. Remember this is taxpayer money. Secretary perdue said if farmers are exploiting weak subsidy laws to get money they shouldnt, its congress fault. Perdue what im telling you, lesley, is that we use the same criteria as Congress Passed in the farm bill to determine who is eligible to receive money and who is not. That thats the facts. Stahl okay. Perdue we, we are administraf thlaw passed by congress. Stahl but let me ask you, as the secretary of agriculture, if you think thats a good idea. To have those allow those partnerships to exist. Perdue i think, again, it really is the responsibility to congress to determine this. From my perspective as an administrator, my job is to follow the law. ticking ticking Sharyn Alfonsi the state of texas has three of the biggest cities in america, but it has not suffered the same number of covid19 infections as other large states. As of friday, texas was ranked ninth but texas also ranks near the bottom when it comes to the percentage of residents its tested, and that worries some doctors and nurses, especially those in rural areas of the state. Many small hospitals and clinics around the country are fearful they dont have the staff and budget to survive the pandemic. Among those trying to prop up the system in texas is sid miller, the commissioner of agriculture, who wears many hats. He came to our interview wearing a custom made white one. Sid miller well, im the commissioner of agriculture. Course we oversee, you know, cows, plows, and sows, but thats im also the commissioner of the state office of rural health. So we were were trying to keep 163 rural hospitals open and from, you know, going out of business. Alfonsi any sense of how many hospitals rural hospitals are at risk right now in texas . Miller well, of the 163 we have, 60 of em have less than 30 days cash on hand. Alfonsi whoa. Miller yeah, some of em actually, we had one filing for bankruptcy this week. Alfonsi a hospital . Miller in alpine, texas and the Parent Company are filing for bankruptcy. So weve already alfonsi did this push them over the edge, the covid . Miller yes, it it pushed em over the edge. And im im afraid this pandemic were gonna were gonna continue to lose Healthcare Providers in rural texas and across the nation. Alfonsi low reimbursement rates and high numbers of uninsured patients have forced 128 hospitals that served six Million People across the nation to close in the last decade. 21 hospitals were in texas. More than any other state. Thats left one out of five doral texas counties without a Elizabeth Ellis is a Nurse Practitioner. Elizabeth ellis come on alfonsi when we met her she was tearing around her east texas farm with her fourlegged sidearm named pistol. The clinic she owns is in bedias, texas. Population 443. Lately, her job includes administering covid19 tests in the clinic parking lot. Has coronavirus reached out here . Ellis yes, it has reached Grimes County. Alfonsi thats shocking. You know, driving through here i definitely saw more cows than people. Ellis a lot of our Community Members have to leave the county for jobs. That puts them at risk. So it was inevitable that at some point in time it was gonna hit the county. Alfonsi so far, Grimes County has reported 19 covid cases and one death. The county is about an hour and a half northwest of houston. 400,000 acres of it is covered with farms and ranches. Social distancing is built into the landscape and enforced by barbed wire. Tell me what the challenge is of providing healthcare in a Rural Community like this. Ellis we have larger elderly population. And they have sometimes ten, sometimes 12, even 20 chronic disease states and comorbid conditions. Theyre poor, predominantly on medicaid. I have a tremendous Agricultural Group of farmers and families that are in the gap. They cant afford insurance. Alfonsi when you say in the gap, what do you mean by that . Ellis they are not quite poor enough to be on medicaid, and they dont make enough money to yet afford insurance. Alfonsi so as were talking about coronavirus, we know the elrl wew eesting conditreer ris ellis it is this community. Alfonsi now, many of those patients are too afraid to go to the clinic. Others simply cant get there. Ellis for many of these people, transportation is a liability. They dont have it or they cant dri theyre elderly, they have conditions and they cant drive. Alfonsi increasingly elliss rounds require a full tank of gas. She negotiates dusty roads to check up on patients at their homes. So if you get a bunch of coronavirus cases, if theres some kind of Community Spread here, what happens . What do you do . Ellis im going to be overwhelmed. And what frightens me is that all of americas critical access hospitals, especially here in texas, are at risk of closing. Alfonsi critical access hospitals are the healthcare outposts many Rural Communities rely on. The drive to an emergency room can take an hour or more. Dr. Leighann falcon i take care of people i went to school with, their parents. I take care of former teachers. L as my kids. They may go to my gym, and so we just, we we know everyone. Alfonsi dr. Leighann falcon is one of ten full time doctors at Memorial Medical Center in calhoun county. It serves 26,000 people on the gulf coast of texas. Dr. Falcon also runs a clinic just down the street. You hear about rural healthcare in texas and it being such a dire situation here, and hospitals closing and doctors leaving. Why . Why is it so bad in texas . Dr. Falcon we lead the nation in a lot of things and including uninsured. So about 9 of people are uninsured across the country, give or take, and in texas, its more than double that. Our little hospital down the street on any given year can provide up to 6 million in uncompensated care. And its hard to run a business when youre giving away 6 million a year. Alfonsi and this year, the pandemic has pushed calhoun countys hospital further into the red. Like many states, preparing for the pandemic, texas cancelled nonessential medical procedures for 30 days to expand Hospital Capacity around the state. Things like colonoscopies and lab services that usually make up half the revenue at the states rural hospitals. When we visited calhoun countys hospital, there were no covid patients, but few other patients either. We noticed the e. R. Was silent and most beds were empty. Partly because fear of the virus is discouraging people from going to the e. R. An administrator told us they were down to seven days worth of cash. Revenue from elective procedures, a primary moneymaker for the hospital, has almost disappeared. Can, you know, the hospitals, the clinics survive this . Dr. Falcon without assistance, they wont survive. And if our hospital were to close, it would devastate our community. It would it would be horrible. Alfonsi how so . Dr. Falcon well, first of all, theres just a lack of care. Again, were already short physicians. Were short for healthcare. If you have an emergency, and the nearest emergency room is over 35 miles away, thats not a good thing. Alfonsi dr. Falcon, a single mother of three, has started skipping paychecks to pay her staff. And theres another problem doctors and nurses must treat every patient like they may have covid19. Now theyre running low on personal protective equipment. Dr. Falcon its empty. Alfonsi its empty. Dr. Falcon yeah, and i never thought i would see that. Alfonsi a nurse told us they are reusing masks and mixing their own cleaning supplies. The number of covid19 cases is still rising in their county. Last week, it was up to 30. And preparing for the possibility of more is further draining the budget. Dr. Falcon our hospital is financially struggling on a good day. So now this normal equipment which we probably pay what a dollar for, fifty cents for, and now we are paying 20 times that. Its just crazy. Alfonsi are you . Have prices gone up that much . Yeah, so usually, the masks like were wearing, these are like dr. Falcons wearing we pay about six cents each normally. We are paying up to a 1. 20 each now. Alfonsi lately sid miller, the agriculture commissioner who oversees a 680 million state budget, has taken to delivering Hand Sanitizer in the back of his truck. Loading it up in austin, driving it to the country. I think a lot of people think because some areas of texas are so rural and so remote that covid wont affect them, wont bother them. Theres natural social distancing. Miller well, you know, thats simply not true. The single hottest spot in the United States is in south dakota, of all places. You know, had a beef packing plant up there. Well, i think the last count i saw was, like, 650 cases in that one town where those you know, areas of south dakota. So that that that dog wont hunt. It just doesnt hold true. Alfonsi after we spoke to miller, a similar hotspot surfaced nearly nine hours from austin, at a meatpacking plant in a city called cactus in the texas panhandle. More than 350 people have tested positive and three died in surrounding moore county, which now has the highest Covid Infection rate in the state. The sole 25 bed hospital in the county only had two ventilators. The c. E. O. Of the hospital used his fourseater plane to pick up two more ventilators and the state lied ather three. Miller the one thing that thats limited on these rural hospitals, is ventilators. Some of em may have one. Some of em may have two. Weve had to go back in and dig out those that are in storage, you know, and refurbish em and get them ready. So we still dont quite have a handle on the ventilators in these rural hospitals. Alfonsi in march, he asked the Texas Governor for 40 million to prop up Rural Healthcare Centers during the pandemic, arguing if the hospitals fail, the communities will too. Miller when a hospital closes up, the manufacturing leaves too cause they have to have healthcare. You have you have to have three things. You have to have a financial institution, you have to have healthcare, and you have to have church. If you dont have any of those three, the Community Starts to dry up. Alfonsi on monday, Texas Governor greg abbott announced he was allowing his stayathome order to expire and some texas businesses to reopen. Greg abbott that executive order has done its job to slow the growth of covid19. Alfonsi three days later, texas had its single highest number of covid deaths in a day, with 50. Abbott is now prioritizing testing in Rural Communities. But he has not publicly said whether hell grant any additional funding to rural clinics and declined our requests for an interview. Dr. Falcon being younger and naive, i guess i just never realized during times like this when something would happen, how much we would really have to rely on ourselves and kind of cowboy up and do things our own. Alfonsi in march, Congress Approved 100 billion for hospitals, and in april President Trump signed a relief package that promised another 75 billion. But so far, the hospital in calhoun county, texas has received about 600,000 of aid which they say will cover three weeks payroll. And Nurse Practitioner Elizabeth Ellis has received a total of 800. On friday afternoon, the Trump Administration promised to rush 10 billion specifically for Rural Health Care providers. Nurse ellis told us shell believe it when she sees it. Ellis right now, you know, im im losin 10,000 plus alfonsi 10,000 a month . Ellis yes, this is my retirement. Im using my retirement. Alfonsi no one would blame you if you said, ive had enough. I cant keep diggin into my retirement. Why dont you . Ellis because i believe in what we are doing with my heart. We will do our best to maintain, but it wont last for very long. Im im at risk every day right now of having to make that difficult decision. ticking for more on our coverage of the coronavirus, go to 60minutesovertime. Com. Lesley stahl one of the rules of journalism is dont become part of the story. But instead of covering the pandemic, i was one of the more thanone million americans who did become part of it. I wasnt alone from this broadcast. One covidpositive 60 minutes coworker had almost no symptoms while others had almost every symptom you can imagine. Each case is different. After two weeks at home in bed, weak, fighting pneumonia, and really scared, i went to the hospital. I found an overworked, nearly overwhelmed staff. Every one of them kind, sympathetic, gentle and caring from the moment i arrived until the moment days later when i was wheeled out through a gauntlet of cheering medical workers. In the face of so much death, they celebrate their triumphs. This valiant army in scrubs and masks was not just doing a job. They were fulfilling a mission, answering the call. Thanks to them, like so many other patients, i am well now. Tonight, we all owe them our gratitude, our admiration, and in some cases, our lives. Im lesley stahl. Well be back next week with another edition of 60 minutes. ticking captioning funded by cbs and ford. We go further, so you can. Captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org