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POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
House Bill Would Eliminate Critical Public Health and Prevention Funding
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The House Energy and Commerce Committee is scheduled this week to consider its part of the House’s budget reconciliation bill, which would eliminate health reform’s Prevention and Public Health Fund — defunding critical investments in areas such as responding to infectious diseases, reducing tobacco use, and immunizing children.
Under current law, the Prevention and Public Health Fund will provide $15.5 billion over the next ten years and $2 billion a year thereafter for a broad range of initiatives to advance prevention and public health, improve health outcomes, and enhance health care quality. The programs it funded this year include:
To support the continued financing of these important activities, the American Public Health Association, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, March of Dimes, and other national organizations strongly opposed legislation earlier this year to substantially cut the Fund. The House bill would go a step further and eliminate it entirely.