(Credit: Cleveland Clinic official site)

Following a disturbing trend in the federal aid dispensed in the coronavirus epidemic, The New York Times has learned that some of the nation’s wealthiest hospitals have been paid billions.

Yet the hospital, in the nation’s first COVID-19 epicenter, also just received approximately $509M in federal funds to combat the novel coronavirus.

As part of the CARES federal aid package, the Department of Health and Human Services will grant $172 billion to hospitals around the country.

A Kaiser study shows that hospitals with mostly privately insured patients got the bulk of coronavirus money.

By contrast, the Cleveland Clinic received $199 million despite holdings of $7B, while Houston’s Harris Health System, which operates two hospitals in the city serving mostly the poor and uninsured, received less than a quarter of the $43M it has lost since the pandemic, according to the Times.