House Budget Bill Threatens Public Health, Defend Public Health Says

Bill Would Kill Critical but Little-Known Agency

WASHINGTON, DC -- The FY 2027 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, passed recently by the House Appropriations Committee, poses a serious threat to public health, members of Defend Public Health said today, and deserves to quickly die in the Senate. While it rejects the draconian cuts of the Trump budget, it would greatly harm many areas of public health, cutting CDC funding by over $1 billion and drastically reducing HIV, viral hepatitis, STI, chronic disease programs, as well as maternal and child health. The bill would completely eliminate research into climate and health as well as firearm injuries, along with funding for Title X family planning. Another provision would eliminate the critical but little-known Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

While the committee calls the agency “duplicative,” members of Defend Public Health note that the rarely-discussed AHRQ is the only agency doing the critical work of health systems research, funding, and training needed to better understand what works and what saves or wastes money in healthcare.

“AHRQ is an essential agency that supports hundreds of millions in grants toward understanding the effect of health insurance programs, interventions to promote patient safety, and value-based health care,” said DPH member Miranda Yaver, a University of Pittsburgh health policy professor. “AHRQ is the wrong agency to eliminate if you want to rein in health care spending, because it funds research on what is cost-effective.”

In DPH’s view, taking aim at AHRQ could set the U.S. even farther back in health research and training, leading to worse health policies and thus harming wide-ranging areas of health – from maternal health to behavioral health, rural health and more.

“The claim that AHRQ duplicates other health agencies simply misses the mark,” Yaver said. “While the National Institutes of Health conducts and funds biomedical research that can lead to new treatments, AHRQ is the only agency that assesses how to ensure that patients actually reap the benefits of those treatments. By investing in AHRQ, we can tackle issues such as effective ways to reduce hospital-acquired infections, the impact of telemedicine in rural communities, insurance reforms’ impact on health care utilization and equity, how to improve maternal health among Medicaid enrollees, and so much more.”

AHRQ also funds predoctoral and postdoctoral training programs across the country to develop the next generation of health services researchers. “Eliminating AHRQ would grind to a halt the health services research training that is essential to people early in their careers,” said Yaver.

The research produced with support from AHRQ, Yaver noted, “produces tangible benefits, from literal lives saved to reducing waste – something the administration keeps saying it wants to do. America’s health outcomes already lag behind other high-income countries. Eliminating AHRQ will set us back even more. This little-understood poison pill is one more reason this bill should die. The Senate must do better.”

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Defend Public Health is a volunteer-driven network of public health researchers, healthcare workers, advocates and allies fighting to protect the health of all from the Trump administration's cruel attacks on proven, science-based public health policies. We believe that everyone has the right to what they need for a healthy life, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity.
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