Nearly Two Dozen U.S. States File Lawsuit Against Trump Administration Over Health Funding Cuts

Almost two dozen U.S. states have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over cuts to billions of dollars in health sector funding. The lawsuit was filed on April 2 by an alliance of state attorneys general.

The Trump administration had decided to reduce federal funding by $11 billion for several medical programs and COVID-19 related measures across the country. The lawsuit was filed in a federal court in Rhode Island by 23 states, including New York, Colorado, the District of Columbia, and Pennsylvania, among others.

The plaintiffs argue that the cuts are illegal and that the federal government has failed to provide any logical justification for them. According to the lawsuit, these cuts will significantly harm public health, and there will be a much higher risk of future outbreaks and the spread of other common diseases in the states.

The lawsuit requests the court to immediately prevent the Trump administration from enacting these cuts, particularly those that were allocated by the House of Representatives during the pandemic. Most of these funds were earmarked for COVID-19-related measures such as testing and vaccination, as well as for various mental health programs.

New York Attorney General Letitia James said that these cuts would reverse progress made in addressing the opioid crisis and severely damage mental health systems across the country.

In addition, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued notices to employees, and it is expected that 10,000 people will be laid off. However, the department has refrained from commenting on the protests surrounding the funding cuts.

Last week, the department issued a statement saying that taxpayers’ billions of dollars would no longer be wasted on a pandemic that has already ended. This statement came after data released by the CDC showed that, on average, 411 people in the U.S. are dying from COVID-19 every week, even though the federal public health emergency has officially ended.

State health agencies are now reviewing the impacts of the funding cuts, and the lawsuit also claims that these reductions could lead to thousands of job losses and weaken efforts to prevent epidemics like flu and measles.