Hospitals might be able to use allocated $100 billion to treat uninsured Americans

There's a chance Americans without insurance can get treated for COVID-19 and not lose everything they have.

In a Thursday briefing from the White House coronavirus task force, President Trump hinted that the federal government may reimburse hospitals who treat people without insurance. That proposal could draw from the $100 billion hospitals were allocated in the coronavirus stimulus package, and a final decision on the matter will be made Friday, Vice President Mike Pence said.

Trump signed the $2.2 trillion CARES Act last week, which was supposed to make all COVID-19 testing free and requires all private insurance companies to fully cover coronavirus treatment. But that still leaves a hole for uninsured Americans, especially considering that an estimated 3.5 million people have lost their employer-based health insurance over the past two weeks. Those recently unemployed people can sign up for government insurance under the Affordable Care Act, but Trump brushed off that idea Thursday, saying "we're doing better than that."

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That "better" proposal, Trump said, is "a cash payment" for "that certain group of people." Pence then elaborated, saying the proposal would let hospitals "use some of the $100 billion that we're making available to hospitals to compensate the hospitals directly for any coronavirus treatment that they provide to uninsured Americans."