RFK Jr. to cut 10,000 jobs at US health department
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that it will cut about 10,000 full-time jobs and close half of its regional offices.
Reuters
- Pennsylvania joined a multistate lawsuit against the Trump administration for cutting billions in state health funding.
- Pennsylvania state officials say the funding was not restricted to the coronavirus response and was meant to bolster health systems.
- The grants in Pennsylvania have been used to detect disease outbreaks, support vaccine clinics, and increase capacity in state laboratories that process test samples.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has joined a multistate lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s move to ax billions in state health funding, including more than $500 million slated for the commonwealth.
Federal health officials several days ago notified states they were canceling grants that the Keystone State was spending to enhance vaccination efforts, strengthen care in long-term residential facilities and boost lab capacity to process samples for COVID-19, bird flu and other pathogens.
Loss of the funding harms the Pennsylvania Department of Health and other agencies as they’re working to contain avian influenza and respond to measles cases in various parts of the state, officials said in a Tuesday statement announcing the legal action.
“The federal government broke its half billion-dollar contract with the Commonwealth and as a result of this unlawful action, is undermining our ability to protect the health of Pennsylvania’s children and families,” Shapiro said in the statement.
Pennsylvania filed the lawsuit along with 22 other states and Washington, D.C.
In cutting the grants, President Donald Trump’s administration argued that states no longer needed the public health dollars, which Congress set aside in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS (Health and Human Services) will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a nonexistent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said.
But state officials say the funding was never restricted to the coronavirus response and was meant to bolster health systems whose vulnerabilities were exposed during the pandemic. Shapiro’s office said the grants support more than 150 state employees and contractors in Pennsylvania.
In Pennsylvania, the grants have been used to
- detect disease outbreaks and distribute timely information about them;
- support vaccine clinics and increase immunization rates in hard-to-reach communities;
- increase the capacity in state laboratories that process test samples;
- launch programs addressing workforce shortages at long-term care facilities;
- strengthen county health departments; and
- support plans to buy 85,000 air purifiers for distribution in schools, care facilities and daycares.
Bethany Rodgers is a USA TODAY Network Pennsylvania investigative journalist.
