FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Media Relations
Statement from APHA Executive Director Georges C. Benjamin, MD
“The House FY 2024 Labor-HHS-Education spending bill, passed by subcommittee today, contains numerous counterproductive spending cuts and discriminatory policy riders. It’s deeply troubling that the bill inflicts drastic spending cuts or eliminates funding for programs that are helping to address some of the greatest public health threats we face, including gun violence, climate change and community resiliency in the face of extreme weather, an underfunded public health system and access to safe and affordable reproductive health care. We strongly urge the House to reject this ill-conceived bill and to instead work in a bipartisan manner to develop a bill that strengthens and protects the nation’s health and wellbeing.
We are particularly dismayed by the bill’s extreme cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Resources and Services Administration. The bill would slash CDC funding by $1.6 billion below the current funding level and would cut HRSA by $700 million below the FY 2023 level.
The bill would drastically cut or eliminate funding for numerous programs including:
- Eliminate funding for gun violence prevention research at CDC.
- Eliminate funding for CDC’s Climate and Health program, which provides some states and communities with resources to protect the public from health threats caused by climate change, including the extreme heat we are experiencing over a significant portion of the western and southern U.S. and the extreme precipitation in the Northeast.
- Cut CDC’s Public Health Infrastructure and Capacity funding by $250 million below the current level.
- Eliminate funding for the Title X Family Planning Program.
- Eliminate funding for the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative at both CDC and HRSA.
- Eliminate funding for HRSA programs to increase diversity in the health workforce.
The bill also contains numerous anti-public health policy riders that target the rights of the LGBTQ community, restrict access to abortion and other reproductive health care and block the administration’s efforts to promote equity and diversity across the federal government.
We strongly oppose this bill and urge the House to reject it.”
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The American Public Health Association champions the health of all people and all communities. We are the only organization that combines a 150-year perspective, a broad-based member community and the ability to influence federal policy to improve the public’s health. Learn more at www.apha.org.