Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
AGENCY TESTIMONY
Federal funding challenges and their impact on public health
2:31:17
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128 sec
Dr. Morse details the recent federal public health funding cuts and their potential impact on the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She discusses the legal challenges to these cuts and other federal-level issues affecting public health work in New York City.
- $11.4 billion in federal public health funding rescinded, with $100 million earmarked for NYC at risk
- Legal action taken by 23 states and D.C. against the funding revocation
- Staffing reductions and reorganization at the federal Health and Human Services department
- Growing misinformation affecting trust in public health interventions
Michelle Morse
2:31:17
On March 25, the day after our preliminary budget hearing, the federal government announced the rescission of $11,400,000,000 in public health funding.
2:31:25
That money was allocated by congress to help state and local health departments recover from the COVID nineteen pandemic and reinforce critical public health infrastructure.
2:31:34
Of that funding, about a hundred million dollars came to our agency.
2:31:38
The majority of that funding is earmarked for critical disease control and outbreak outbreak prevention infrastructure.
2:31:44
That includes improving our data systems to manage much larger amounts of data and staffing our public health lab which diagnoses diseases like measles in just hours.
2:31:55
We have not yet lost that funding.
2:31:57
A coalition of 23 states and the District Of Columbia sued the administration for their illegal revocation of congressionally allocated funds.
2:32:06
New York State Attorney General Letitia James is leading that lawsuit.
2:32:10
Last week, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that requires the administration to preserve funding for the states involved in the lawsuit.
2:32:19
Here in New York City, about 20% of our agency's budget is federally funded, which amounts to $600,000,000, a hundred million of which is now tied up in the courts.
2:32:29
Those attempted funding cuts have not been the only challenge.
2:32:32
About 20,000 of our colleagues at Health and Human Services have either been fired or have left the agency just this year.
2:32:40
The administration also proposed a dramatic restructuring of HHS and the confusion created by that reorganization paired with the impact of staffing reductions is already creating downstream administrative hurdles for us.
2:32:53
We're also paying close attention to the proposed public health and health care funding cuts in the White House skinny budget and the budget reconciliation process.
2:33:02
Meanwhile there has been a groundswell of misinformation that's fueling mistrust in long standing public health interventions like water fluoridation, milk pasteurization, the value of health equity interventions, and childhood vaccinations.
2:33:16
Amid all of this, we kept up a considerable drumbeat of critical public health work locally and we've remained steadfast in our commitment to health equity.