The funds will be the latest tranche from the total $187 billion lawmakers set aside to help health care providers battling the pandemic. Health care providers and lawmakers from both parties had in recent weeks ratcheted up pressure on the Department of Health and Human Services to release billions in unused funds.

The latest funding amounts to less than half of the total unspent provider grants HHS has left, according to a government watchdog report from May that showed $52.2 billion in funds yet to be doled out to providers. Lawmakers considered using some of the unspent money to pay for infrastructure projects, but ultimately decided against it.

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