U.S. Covid Funding Flaw Shortchanges Hospitals in Black Communities

The CARES Act funding relied on the same flawed method that caused issues for the health system in the study, said Ziad Obermeyer, one of the authors of the Covid paper as well as the research on the Optum algorithm. He and his fellow researchers looked at actual disbursements where data already existed and used the publicly disclosed formula to calculate the rest. They found that communities with more Black residents did get more relief dollars — partly because of grants that sent funds straight to hard-hit areas — but not as much as they should have based on the number of virus cases, underlying conditions that put residents at risk for severe cases, and how financially strapped the hospitals in those communities are.

“When you compare counties that have a similar level of funding, the counties that are disproportionately Black are in much worse health,” Kakani said. “You shouldn’t need to be in worse health to get the same funding.”