THE governor’s authorized representative for the Covid-19 disaster, Patrick Guerrero, said without an emergency declaration, federal assistance to the CNMI for the pandemic will end.
“As long as there are still activities here [in the CNMI] that deal with this coronavirus, then we’re going to remain under an emergency declaration,” he added. “If we decide to stop our emergency situation, then that also means we’re saying that we don’t need any more federal support in terms of funding, at least from [the Federal Emergency Management Agency].”
He said this may also affect the support that the CNMI receives from other federal agencies.
“Our daily operations continue in a very watered down and toned-down version today compared to October when we had our surge, but yes, we still are in an emergency,” Guerrero said.
It was in mid-July when the declaration of public health emergency for Covid-19 in the CNMI was extended for another 90-day period, which will end this October.
In a separate interview, Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation Chief Executive Officer Esther L. Muna said the emergency declaration also allows the Presumptive Medicaid to continue until October.
Presumptive Medicaid is an expedited process of enrolling eligible residents into the CNMI Medicaid Program.
It allows patients to have their care covered while waiting for their application to be fully processed.
However, it is only a temporary coverage provided by Medicaid for those who are uninsured.
It ends when the public health emergency ends, or if a full Medicaid application is submitted prior to the end of the Presumptive Eligibility period and an eligibility determination is made on that application, whichever is earlier.
“What we’ve seen here with the Presumptive Eligibility is that there are a lot of people that need access to insurance. There’s a lot of them. It increased the Medicaid population,” Muna said.
For their part, some CNMI lawmakers said the emergency declaration also provides the administration with “unlimited reprogramming power” in responding to the Covid-19 pandemic.
