TFAH Statement on the House Appropriations Committee’s Proposed Plan to Use the Prevention and Public Health Fund To Fund a Continuing Resolution: Would Cut CDC Funding by $2.85 Billion Over the Next Decade

February 6, 2018

Washington, D.C., February 6, 2018– The below is a statement from John Auerbach, president and CEO, Trust for America’s Health (TFAH).

“It is absolutely critical to extend funding for community health centers and other health safety net programs.

But, the House Appropriations Committee’s proposed long-term funding cuts to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would be a staggering blow to the world’s premier public health agency and would cut health-related funding to states and local communities by billions of dollars. 

While this Continuing Resolution (CR) would temporarily restore the near-term cuts made to CDC in the last short-term CR, the cumulative cut would amount to $2.85 billion over the next decade.

Plainly, the CR would drastically hamper our nation’s ability to control outbreaks, address the opioid epidemic, and keep the nation healthy and secure.

This severe flu season illustrates how critical public health infrastructure is to protecting all Americans. CDC has been working with state and local public health to track the outbreak, measure the effectiveness of vaccines and antivirals, and communicate the best ways to stay healthy. And it provides state and local public health organizations with grants that give them the resources to protect their residents of their communities.  These are basic protections we depend on, but they would be threatened by cutting CDC’s core budget.

This legislation furthers our national trend of conflating treatment for disease with the critical efforts to prevent it. Public health keeps people healthy and out of the hospital, while community health centers provide the clinical care communities depend on. 

We need to invest in the continuum of chronic and infectious disease prevention, detection and mitigation—the very programs supported by the Prevention and Public Health Fund—alongside the critical safety-net treatment provided in community health centers.

Since FY 2010, CDC’s budget authority has actually decreased by 11.4 percent (adjusted for inflation). This cut has occurred in spite of the growing burden of largely preventable health threats such as the opioid epidemic and emerging infectious disease outbreaks such as Zika.

Instead of pitting CDC funding against other important health priorities, Congress should significantly increase its investment in CDC to ensure we have the resources required to address the many health challenges facing the nation.”

Impact of Proposal from the House Appropriations Committee Regarding Prevention and Public Health Fund (PPHF) Allocations Fiscal Year 2018 – 2028

Trust for America’s Health is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to saving lives by protecting the health of every community and working to make disease prevention a national priority. www.healthyamericans.org

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