February 16th Health Reform Digest | Health Reform

SPECIAL UPDATE

Wellness and Prevention
Health Reform Digest

Today’s News (2/16/12)

Good news and bad news today. First the bad news – it does look like the Prevention and Public Health Fund will decrease by $5 billion over the next ten years as part of the reported Congressional agreement on the tax extender/doc fix package. Of course, the agreement still needs to be turned into legislative language, followed by the securing of majority support in the House and Senate later this week. On the positive side, our understanding is that the agreement slows of the growth of the Fund, which will still ultimately top out at $2 billion a year (just a bit later). Still waiting on the details of how it all looks. And, if my math is correct, we are looking at upwards of $13 billion in available resources from the Fund over the next ten years, and $20 billion over the subsequent ten year period.

Here’s a section-by-section on the conference report – http://healthyamericans.org/health-issues/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Summary-of-Health-Related-Provisions-in-the-Middle-Class-Tax-Relief-and-Job-Creation-Act-of-2012.pdf – with the following excerpt on the Prevention Fund (emphasis added), “This provision reduces funding in the so-called “Prevention and Public Health Fund,” also known as the “Harkin Fund,” which was created in ObamaCare, which provides the Secretary of HHS unlimited authority to spend above and beyond appropriated levels for any activity authorized by the Public Health Service Act. CBO estimates this provision would reduce spending by $5 billion from 2012 through 2022.” While I’m never one to editorialize… not hard to surmise where this provision initiated.

Also, we have been overwhelmed by the response from large numbers of organizations generating letters, calls, action alerts, and Congressional visits. Congress and the Administration does need to hear from us loud and clear. In the coming days we will have a number of suggestions for next steps. And a number of action alerts have been circulated, from groups like AAP, ASTHO, APHA, AMCHP, CSPI, National Physicians Alliance, Prevention Institute, and HIV Prevention Justice Alliance. Many of us have been working on the Fund for going on three years, and while this is a bump in the road for public health, it is a wake-up call that we do need to continue to refine the case for support.

If you haven’t already done so, Congress and the Administration needs to hear a loud reaction to this agreement. Attached are several recently released statements

TFAH – http://healthyamericans.org/newsroom/releases/?releaseid=258
American Public Health Association – http://www.apha.org/about/news/pressreleases/2012/feb15statement.htm
Coalition on Health Funding – http://publichealthfunding.org/dev/uploads/OpposeFundCuts.Feb2012.pdf

In the meantime, FY11 numbers have now been added into the state-by-state Prevention and Public Health Fund allocations on healthcare.gov. The new state pages appear to be cumulative for FY10 and FY11 – http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/2011/02/prevention02092011a.html. It’s a great tool for educating policymakers.

And as promised, here’s our annual “mega chart” for CDC funding. This includes data gathered from this week’s budget documents, and comes with the usual caveats that it: (1) doesn’t include every line in the CDC budget; (2) it’s always a challenge finding apples to apples in the budget lines; (3) you’ll probably find an error somewhere in the document. That said, hope it’s useful (may need to increase the size to 200% to read it). http://healthyamericans.org/health-issues/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Budget-Chart-FY2010-2013.pdf

Opportunities/Deadlines

{the Opportunities/Deadlines categories are live links which you can click on for further information}

Sign On Documents and Opportunities for Input

Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is facilitating the submission of letters to the editor in support of the Prevention and Public Health Fund (no current deadline)

National Wildlife Foundation seeks signatures on a letter opposing elimination of federal funding for the EPA’s Office of Environmental Education (no current deadline)

Nemours seeks signatures on a letter in support of the Healthy Kids from Day One Act (no current deadline)

Regulatory Comments

None current.

Funding Opportunities

The Public Health Foundation has launched a national award program to promote use of quality improvement (QI) (deadline, March 16^th)

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has announced the availability of $110 million in grants under the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative to transform public and assisted housing and to revitalize communities. (deadline, April 10^th)

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