Thanks NYT: More Press is Needed
The prevention community was pleased to read The New York Times' strong endorsement of "a farsighted program - the Prevention and Public Health Fund" in its April 25 editorial, "So Much for That Ounce of Prevention." The Times provided a much-needed and intelligent synopsis of the debate over this important disease control and prevention provision of last year's health reform law.
The furnace driving the nation's deficit is powered in large measure by our continued practice of shoveling more than 70 percent of our health dollar into expensive and belated efforts to treat preventable chronic conditions. The Times rightly concluded that Congress should strengthen efforts to prevent chronic conditions like heart disease and obesity, "boost" vaccination levels, "build laboratories" that can track food and infectious pathogens, "bolster" our capacity to track disease epidemics and train public health workers. Polls show that the public overwhelmingly agrees.
Prevention advocates are fighting on several fronts. First, we are working to ensure Congress understands the need for -- and retains -- the Prevention Fund. We are also arguing against budget cuts at the state and local level that are eroding our nation's prevention and response infrastructure. Already 15,000 jobs in state health departments have been lost nationwide. And finally, our vital and much larger prevention funding stream, the core discretionary budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is in trouble.
In what may be the largest single cut to the CDC's budget authority in its 60-year history, the FY11 budget agreement signed into law in April slashed the CDC's discretionary budget authority by $748 million. This nearly 10 percent cut to the agency's core budget has not been widely reported. In the coming weeks, CDC and other agencies will release their 2011 budget adjustments and we will learn which disease control and prevention initiatives are on the chopping block. At that point, any debate about our national approach to disease control and prevention may well get caught up in a disease-by-disease assessment of who won, and who lost.
Even with the Prevention Fund intact, our nation is not yet bolstering our investments in a healthier tomorrow. As an organization that spent three years assuring that any health reform bill did more than change the way we care for the sick, the Campaign for Public Health applauds the Times for covering the nation's desperate need for greater prevention investments. Not only should the Senate ignore the House effort to repeal the Prevention Fund, but both parties should also work together during the 2012 budget debate to fund programs that keep America healthy. We will only shovel more good tax dollars into the furnace tomorrow if we don't focus on disease control and prevention today.
|