Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was grilled at a congressional hearing on Tuesday as he defended his administration’s nursing home policies during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During a hearing on the COVID-19 response by the Republican-led House Select Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Governor Cuomo appeared on the defensive, largely sticking to his decisions during the pandemic (including his March 2020 directive to readmit COVID-19 patients to nursing homes) and blaming the sudden increase in deaths on former President Donald Trump’s lack of leadership.
Cuomo previously testified before the subcommittee at a closed-door hearing in June, and transcripts of that interview, along with interviews with senior officials from his administration, were made public Tuesday morning ahead of the hearing.
“On March 13, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) CMS issued guidance — let’s take the word ‘guidance’ — specifically instructing nursing homes not to admit COVID-19 positive patients if they cannot do so safely, and to admit individuals only if the nursing home can follow CDC transmission-based guidance,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), the subcommittee chairman, said in his opening statement Tuesday.
In March 2020, as COVID-19 cases were surging, Governor Cuomo issued an order requiring nursing homes to readmit all residents who had been “medically stable” and returned after being hospitalized with the virus.
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo testifies before a congressional committee in Washington, DC on September 10, 2024.
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“No resident may be denied readmission or admission to a nursing home solely on the basis of a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19,” the order states. Additionally, nursing homes are prohibited from requiring hospitalized residents who are deemed medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.”
But Cuomo countered that under former President Trump’s administration, the CMS and CDC had advised that COVID-positive patients could be moved out of hospitals and into nursing homes even if they were still infectious. That was your decision.
“‘The March 25th guidance was consistent with CMS guidance. Where nursing homes have the ability to comply with infection prevention and control recommendations, the March 25th guidance was consistent with CMS guidance,’ that’s the opinion of the attorney general’s position,” Cuomo said, referring to New York Attorney General Letitia James.
At the time the order was issued, Governor Cuomo explained that it would help expand hospital capacity to meet the demand for treating the most seriously ill COVID-19 patients, but after facing criticism from nursing home advocates, he amended the order in May 2020 to prohibit hospitals from discharging patients to nursing homes unless they had tested negative for COVID-19.
“Your March 25th directive has been called a ‘hospitalization order’ by the public and the media, and rightly so,” Wenstrup told the former New York governor. “Your directive is inconsistent with federal guidelines and medical principles. Highly contagious patients should not be placed together with vulnerable patients who are at risk of infection and, in this case, death.”
Wenstrup added that former White House coronavirus coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx testified in October 2021 that Gov. Cuomo’s orders violated CMS guidelines. When asked if Birx lied, the former governor said Wenstrup and other Republicans misrepresented that precautions were not being taken.
“That’s not true. As you know, this investigation was conducted by the Attorney General, who governs and interprets the laws of the state of New York, and he came to the exact opposite conclusion of what you said,” Cuomo replied.
In 2020, Governor Cuomo fought back against criticism of his policies, and in July of that year, a New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) report stated that COVID-19 was brought into nursing homes by infected staff and that peaks in staff infections correlated with peaks in nursing home resident deaths. The report also found that “admissions policies were not a significant factor in nursing home deaths.”
However, in January 2021, New York Attorney General Letitia James released a report that found the New York State Department of Health undercounted the number of nursing home residents who died from COVID-19 by up to 50% and failed to include nursing home residents who died from COVID-19 after being hospitalized in the official death toll.
In total, more than 15,000 nursing home residents have died from COVID-19 in New York.
In his testimony, Gov. Cuomo said the tally of nursing home deaths is “problematic” because his administration receives ongoing updates from nursing homes.
“Every night we were getting surveys from nursing homes telling us how many deaths there were in the nursing home, how many deaths there were in the hospital,” he said. “The numbers were not solid and it was very problematic because it was like calling nursing homes and asking for a forensic audit in the middle of a pandemic.”
Cuomo also testified that he never instructed his staff to under-report the number of nursing home deaths.
“No, I said that this number excludes deaths outside of facilities. We will add that when it’s accurate,” Gov. Cuomo said.
In one particularly testy exchange, Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York demanded that Cuomo reveal details about how he negotiated his 2020 coronavirus memoir, suggesting he was more interested in the book than his response to the pandemic.
“There’s a reason you were the former governor of New York and will never hold public office again,” Stefanik said.
Some attendees began applauding, so the Chairman reminded the audience to follow the hearing rules and refrain from applauding or cheering.
In 2022, Cuomo’s attorneys said the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office would not pursue criminal charges related to the former governor’s response to nursing home deaths during the pandemic.
Earlier this year, an independent investigation commissioned by New York Governor Kathy Hockle found that Cuomo’s nursing home policies were based on the “best data available at the time” but were poorly communicated to residents and caused anxiety among families of nursing home residents.
“Even the most well-intentioned policies had unintended consequences in (New York state) nursing homes,” the report said.
ABC News’ Peter Charalambos contributed to this report.
