The federal government announced Wednesday it’s reimbursing the Washington state health department $263 million for costs responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The money is part of $538 million that Washington’s state and local health departments and hospital systems are receiving, according to U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen’s office. The state Military Department is getting $2 million. There’s also nearly $73 million for King County, $10 million for Pierce County, and $120 million for the Franciscan Health system.
The money for the state Department of Health is meant to cover past expenses like personal protective equipment for healthcare workers and patients, lab equipment to expand COVID testing and added staff at hospitals and other healthcare facilities.
Nationwide, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced $5.4 billion in reimbursements across the country, after years of delays.
“FEMA finally releasing these reimbursements helps replenish coffers and strengthen health care systems, which protects affordable health care options for local families,” said Larsen, a Democrat from Everett.
Washington Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat, said in a statement that it’s “good to see that this money is finally getting out to Washington state entities that are owed it.”
“But these resources should have gone out the door a long time ago,” Murray continued.
She accused former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of holding up the payments “for no good reason, and we need to keep speaking out about this administration treating disaster relief as a political cudgel.”
FEMA officials said the costs the federal government is covering are in line with an executive order from President Donald Trump aiming to audit expenses and stave off fraud.
Republican members of Congress, including the chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, had also expressed frustration over delays in getting the funding out.
The reimbursements remained “severely delinquent and subject to a lack of transparency and communication with recipients and subrecipients,” Rep. Andrew Garbarino, a Republican from New York, wrote in a letter in January to then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
“Withholding these funds from the nation’s hospitals and public health systems cripples readiness and inhibits ongoing operations ahead of emerging challenges,” Garbarino continued.
In Washington, between 2020 and March 2023, nearly 2 million cases of COVID-19 were confirmed and 16,000 people died, according to data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The first confirmed case of the virus in the nation was here in January 2020.
The pandemic squeezed hospitals, leading to yearslong financial fragility. They sustained upward of $4 billion in losses between 2021 and 2024, according to a Washington State Hospital Association survey. Meanwhile, they’re also bracing for steep cuts to Medicaid that congressional Republicans approved last year.
Trump has eyed putting more of the onus on states to prepare for and recover from disasters, instead of relying on federal assistance from FEMA.
This report was first published by the Washington State Standard.
