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The grants are intended to fund improvements in public health staffing and disease monitoring. Eliminating them could lead to layoffs and worse health outcomes, according to a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Rob Bonta.
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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 informed Congress that it was terminating grants to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota. The attorneys general of those states filed a joint lawsuit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, arguing that the cuts were based on “arbitrary political animus” and would cause irreparable harm.
Endangered subsidies help to finance workforce and data modernization, as well as testing and treating diseases such as HIV.
The cuts affect grants 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 is to receive $130 million of that grant, according to Bonta’s office; The money will fund more than 400 jobs, including in areas with health workforce shortages. It also will be aimed at improving the state’s ability to send electronic lab data and provide emergency dental care to underprivileged children, California officials say.
Losing those dollars would cause layoffs and weaken the state’s ability to prepare for public health emergencies, according to the lawsuit.
Another at-risk subsidy, according to the lawsuit, supports planning for extreme heat.
Other grants at risk include $6 million for Los Angeles County to address health care disparities; 1.1 million dollars who can withdraw from the Los Angeles County National HIV Surveillance Project; $876,000 for the Prevention Research Center at USCF to Address Social Isolation Among LGBT Older Adults; $383,000 for the Los Angeles LGBT Center and $1.3 million for Alameda County Health Staff.
The U.S. Health and Human Services Agency has not explained 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 would only say that “these grants are ending because they do not reflect agency priorities “.
Rep. 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 life and preparedness.”
Senator Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, called the grant cancellations “dangerous” and “deliberate.” “The Trump administration’s persecution of Democratic states is illegal and must stop,” he told X.
The California Department of Public Health and local health departments contacted by CalMatters indicated they had not received official notification of the reported layoffs. The Los Angeles Department of Public Health indicated that 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 recovered billions of dollars designed to respond to public health threats, including COVID-19, in states across the country. A federal judge in Rhode Island ruled that the layoffs were illegal.
Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at an affordable cost. Visit www.chcf.org for more information.