Obamacare repeal guts crucial funds

WASHINGTON — The latest Republican health-care bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act would eliminate funds for fundamental public health programs, including for the prevention of bioterrorism and disease outbreaks, as well as money to provide immunizations and heart-disease screenings.

As part of the ACA, or Obamacare, the Prevention and Public Health Fund provides almost $1 billion annually to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since 2010, the fund has been an increasingly important source of money for core CDC programs, today accounting for about 12 percent of the CDC’s total budget.

The GOP bill would eliminate the Prevention and Public Health Fund starting in October of next year. No clear replacement has been proposed.

“This is about protecting Americans, so this is about saving lives,” Anne Schuchat, acting CDC director, said in an interview Tuesday, referring to the proposed elimination of the fund. She and other public health experts held a briefing at the Capitol on Tuesday on the growing threat of drug-resistant superbugs.

“An outbreak can happen anywhere,” she said. “It’s not a red- or blue-state kind of thing. And we want to sustain the defense of Americans’ health from these new emerging threats.”

The CDC’s former director, Tom Frieden, said that if the prevention funding is lost, “Americans will be at greater risk from vaccine-preventable disease, food-borne infections, and deadly infections contracted in hospitals.”

Most of the prevention and public health funds are sent to state and local health departments, with more than $625 million distributed among the 50 states and the District of Columbia last year. Public-healthadvocacy groups and state and local public health officials are warning the Trump administration and Congress of what they describe as the disastrous consequences of eliminating the fund without a corresponding budget increase to compensate for the loss.