Congress Proposes Big Cuts to Prevention and Public Health Fund
Feb 06, 2018
by Erica DeWald, Director of Advocacy, Every Child By Two
Congress is Proposing a $2.85B Cut to Prevention and Public Health Fund (PPHF) over 10 Years
Congress is once again developing a Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government from shutting down on Thursday, February 8. Every Child By Two (ECBT) is pleased to report that the proposed CR budget also includes critical funding for many public health programs including two years of funding for community health centers and the National Health Service Corps.
Unfortunately, it also includes a $2.85 billion cut over ten years to the nation’s Prevention and Public Health Fund (PPHF).
Here’s how it’s broken down (courtesy of Trust for America’s Health):
| Fiscal Year | Current Law | Latest CR | Net | Cumulative Net |
| FY2018 | $900M | $900M | 0 | 0 |
| FY2019 | $800M | $900M | +$100M | +$100M |
| FY2020 | $800M | $1.0B | +$200M | +$300M |
| FY2021 | $800M | $1.0B | +$200M | +$500M |
| FY2022 | $1.25B | $1.1B | -$150M | +$350M |
| FY2023 | $1.0B | $1.1B | +$100M | +$450M |
| FY2024 | $1.7B | $1.1B | -$600M | -$150M |
| FY2025 | $2.0B | $1.1B | -$900M | -$1.05B |
| FY2026 | $2.0B | $1.1B | -$900M | -$1.95B |
| FY2027 | $2.0B | $1.1B | -$900M | -$2.85B |
| FY2028 | $2.0B | $0B | -$2.0B | -$4.85B |
As we’ve shared in previous updates, the PPHF accounts for 53% of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Immunization Program budget. Any cut could mean serious reductions in our country’s and states’ abilities to:
- Support the science that informs our national immunization policy.
- Provide a safety net to uninsured, low-income adults by enabling vaccine purchases;
- Monitor the safety of vaccines.
- Educate healthcare providers.
- Perform community outreach.
- Conduct surveillance, laboratory testing and epidemiology in response to disease outbreaks.
With the U.S. continuously facing costly outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as influenza, measles and pertussis (also known as whooping cough), now is not the time to weaken the backbone of our nation’s public health infrastructure.
We are watching these budget developments closely.
While it’s somewhat reassuring that Congress is replacing the money they cut from the PPHF to reauthorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in this CR, no cut is acceptable. On the positive side, this delay in finalizing the budget does give us time to shore up support among Congressional Members for the critical services funded by the PPHF.
We will continue to send you updates on immunization funding and will be sure to let you know if we need to begin reaching out to our Members of Congress.
Thank you as always for your support of immunizations!
Every Child By Two/Vaccinate Your Family has prepared our second annual State of the ImmUnion report to examine how strong our defenses truly are against vaccine-preventable diseases and what we can do as public health advocates and legislators to make our country stronger and more resilient in the face of emerging health threats.
We hope this report will offer you insights into areas of improvement to strengthen our protection against dangerous, and potentially deadly, vaccine-preventable diseases.
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