California sues Trump over $600 million in health care funding cuts

from Ana B. IbarraCalMatters

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California is suing the Trump administration over its plans to cut $600 million in public health funding from California and three other Democratic states, Attorney General Rob Bonta said Wednesday.

Earlier this week, the US Department of Health and Human Services told Congress it would end grants to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota. The attorneys general in those states filed a joint lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on Wednesday, claiming the cuts were based on “arbitrary political animosity” and would cause irreparable harm.

Threat grants help fund workforce and data modernization as well as testing and treating diseases such as HIV.

The cuts target subsidies given to state and local health departments, as well as universities and providers. According to the complaint, one of the grants at stake is the Public Health Infrastructure Grant, considered the “backbone” of public health care across the country.

California owes $130 million of that grant, according to Bonta’s office; the money pays for more than 400 jobs, including in areas where health workers are in short supply. It also goes toward updating the state’s ability to send electronic lab data and provide emergency dental care to underserved children, the state said.

Losing those dollars would cause layoffs and weaken the state’s ability to prepare for public health emergencies, according to the lawsuit.

Another grant under threat, according to the lawsuit, supports extreme heat planning.

Other venture grants include $6 million for Los Angeles County to address health disparities, 1.1 million dollars which may be withdrawn from the Los Angeles County National HIV Behavioral Surveillance Project; $876,000 for USCF’s Prevention Research Center to Address Social Isolation Among Older LGBTQ Adults; $383,000 for the Los Angeles LGBT Center, and $1.3 million for health personnel in Alameda County.

The U.S. Health and Human Services Agency did not say why the public health infrastructure grant cuts are occurring in only four states, even though the program funds health departments in all 50. An agency spokesman said only that “these grants are being terminated because they do not reflect agency priorities.”

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, called the agency’s reasoning “a transparent excuse to punish states and communities it disagrees with at the direct expense of lives and preparedness.”

U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-California, called the scholarship cancellations “dangerous” and “deliberate.” “The Trump administration’s targeting of blue states is illegal and must end,” he told X.

The California Department of Public Health and local health departments contacted by CalMatters said they had not received official notification of the reported layoffs. The Los Angeles Department of Public Health said the impact on Angelenos will be long-lasting.

“As local health departments across the country face simultaneous health emergencies, defunding federal investments will make our communities less healthy, less safe and less prosperous,” the department said in an unsigned email.

Los Angeles County expects the cuts to undermine its ability to respond to natural disasters and outbreaks such as measles, bird flu and influenza, as well as its work to monitor sexually transmitted diseases and chronic conditions.

This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has targeted public health funding. Last spring he tried to recover billions of dollars by countries designed to respond to public health threats, including COVID-19. A federal judge in Rhode Island ruled that the layoffs were illegal

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a cost they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.