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Davids Wraps Week-Long District Tour to See How American Rescue Plan Is Helping Kansas

April 9, 2021

The tour included visits to local vaccination sites, health clinics, small businesses, and schools.

Today, Representative Sharice Davids wrapped her week-long American Rescue Plan Tour highlighting how the American Rescue Plan is already helping Kansas. Davids visited local vaccination sites, health clinics, small businesses, and schools in her district. The American Rescue plan, which Davids voted to support, is putting shots in arms, children in schools, and people in jobs, as well as money in pockets through $1,400 Economic Impact Payments, many of which have already reached local Kansans.

"It's inspiring to see how Kansans are helping each other in this pandemic and we are starting to see the sun breakthrough the clouds on this crisis, but we also still have a long way to go and Kansans need relief," said Davids. "I was glad to see the American Rescue Plan, which I supported, is already delivering strong, targeted, and effective relief to hardworking Kansans. It's about getting vaccines into people's arms, money into people's pockets, and relief to people who need it."

Watch Davids speak about her tour and how the American Rescue Plan is already helping Kansas on Fox4 earlier this week HERE.

The American Rescue Plan Tour's events included:

  • Meeting with restaurant owner Ed Nelson to discuss the American Rescue Plan provisions to help small businesses and restaurants at Blue Moose in Prairie Village;
  • Wyandotte County Vaccination Site Volunteer Shift at the National Guard Armory in KCK to see how the American Rescue Plan is getting shots in arms;
  • Roundtable discussion and press conference on the ways the American Rescue Plan helps with health care access, including more money for Medicaid expansion, with Governor Kelly at Health Partnership Clinic in Olathe;
  • Mobile food drive volunteer shift at Olathe Family YMCA to discuss the American Rescue Plan's nutrition aid for folks who are struggling due to the pandemic;
  • Virtual Conversation with Prospect Business Association about small business loans and other aid for Kansas small businesses bolstered in the American Rescue Plan;
  • Visit to Shawnee Mission School District and meeting with new Superintendent Dr. Hubbard to talk about how the American Rescue Plan is helping local schools stay open while keeping teachers and students safe.

Facts on American Rescue Plan in Kansas:

The American Rescue Plan Helps Get Shots in Arms by:

  • Investing $20 billion in a coordinated, nationwide vaccine program to:
    • Make sure we have enough vaccines for all Americans through research, development, manufacturing, production, and purchase.
    • Get those vaccines out to all Americans quickly and equitably through community vaccination centers, mobile vaccination units and more.
    • Improve communication to strengthen confidence in the vaccine and make sure all Americans know when, where and how they can get one.
  • Taking complementary measures to scale up testing and tracing, address shortages of personal protective equipment and other critical supplies, invest in high-quality treatments, and address health care disparities.

The American Rescue Plan Helps Make Health Care More Accessible by:

  • Reducing the costs of health care coverage so no one pays more than 8.5% of their income for a silver rated private health insurance plan in the Affordable Care Act's marketplace. For a 60-year-old Kansas couple earning $75,000 a year, that's a savings of $1,550 a month in premiums;
  • Expanding access to upgraded plan categories. One out of four enrollees on Heathcare.gov will be able to upgrade to a higher plan category that offers better out of pocket costs at the same or lower premium compared to what they were paying before;
  • Helping states cover the cost of expanding Medicaid. In Kansas, this expansion would mean another 165,000 Kansans getting the health care they need and anywhere from $330 to $450 million in federal funds being brought back to Kansas.
    • Rep. Davids has advocated for Medicaid expansion since she first got to congress. Most recently, she cosponsored the Incentivizing Medicaid Expansion Act which would incentivize eligible states, including Kansas, to expand Medicaid by starting the amount the federal government matches at 100 percent. A version of this bill was included in the American Rescue Plan.

The American Rescue Plan Helps Small Businesses Recover and Puts People to Work by:

  • Bolstering the Paycheck Protection Program with an additional $7.25 billion in funding to support small businesses and nonprofits that were previously excluded, as well as allocating $15 billion in flexible grants to help the smallest, most severely impacted businesses persevere through the pandemic;
  • Providing crucial resources to protect the jobs of first responders, frontline public health workers, teachers, transit workers and other essential workers, who all Americans depend on;
  • Extending pandemic-related unemployment benefits, with the first $10,200 of unemployment benefits received in 2020 tax free, so 18 million American workers can pay their bills;
  • Allocating $28.6 billion for the Restaurant Revitalization Fund for industry-focused grants;
  • Dedicating about $50 billion to bolstering grants and loans for small businesses still navigating the economic fallout of the pandemic.

The American Rescue Plan Helps Schools Stay Open Safely by:

  • Making nearly $130 billion immediately available to State Education Departments so they can get schools open safely, keep schools open safely, and make up for lost learning time;
  • Allocating $325 Million for Kansas Higher Education institutions, at least half of which must be distributed to students in the form of emergency grants to prevent hunger, homelessness, and other hardships caused by COVID-19;
  • Providing $349 Million in supplemental funding for child care in Kansas, which will help child care providers keep their doors open and reduce costs for struggling families;
  • Distributing $8 Million in emergency funding for Kansas Head Start, which will be used to maintain access to services for children and families.

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Issues:Education