Judge Issues Temporary Hold On Terminating HHS Public Health Funds
A federal judge yesterday temporarily barred the Department of Health and Human Services from terminating public health funds that had been allocated to states during the Covid-19 pandemic, finding that the move had left those states stranded and unable to provide critical health services. Via The New York Times:
Ruling from the bench during a hearing on Thursday, Judge Mary S. McElroy of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island said a coalition of Democratic states had easily demonstrated that the cuts had upended their public health infrastructure and jeopardized everything from childhood vaccination programs to opioid addiction treatment almost overnight.
On Tuesday, 23 states and the District of Columbia had filed a lawsuit pushing back against the Trump administration’s decision last week to cancel at least $11 billion in federal grants. The Trump administration had said that the funding was no longer necessary because the government’s pandemic emergency declaration had officially expired nearly two years ago.
[...] But some of the funding at issue was not scheduled to expire until as late as June 2027, and the states suing said that the abrupt and seemingly arbitrary termination had left them scrambling to fill a deep hole in their budget.