Monday, June 02, 2025

Deep Cuts Erode the Foundations of US Public Health System

Americans are losing a vast array of people and programs dedicated to keeping them healthy.

Posted by lamplighter at 09:30 AM | 29 COMMENTS | permalink

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Deep cuts erode the foundations of US public health system, end progress, threaten worse to come https://trib.al/mcqUUVB

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-- The Denver Post (@denverpost.com) May 31, 2025 at 2:24 PM

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More from the article ...

... State and local health departments responsible for invisible but critical work such as inspecting restaurants, monitoring wastewater for new and harmful germs, responding to outbreaks before they get too big -- and a host of other tasks to protect both individuals and communities -- are being hollowed out.

"Nobody wants to go swim in a community pool and come out of it with a rash or a disease from it. Nobody wants to walk out their door and take a fresh breath of air and start wheezing," said Lori Tremmel Freeman, executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

But local health officials say they now have no choice but to do a lot less of it. The Trump administration is cutting health spending on an unprecedented scale, experts say, including pulling $11 billion of direct federal support because the pandemic is over and eliminating 20,000 jobs at national health agencies that in part assist and support local public health work. It's proposing billions more be slashed. ...



#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-05-31 06:50 PM

Related ...

Trump cuts threaten safety training for America's most dangerous jobs

... By the time Robbie Roberge spotted the fire consuming his boat's galley last August, he knew he had just minutes to evacuate his beloved Three Girls fishing vessel, named for his daughters.

As the flames spread up the boat's walls, he helped his crew into safety suits, deployed a life raft and made a mayday call to alert nearby mariners and the U.S. Coast Guard that he was abandoning ship more than 100 miles offshore.

Roberge, a commercial fisherman from South Portland, Maine, learned how to handle such an emergency just three months earlier at a workshop held by Fishing Partnership Support Services, a nonprofit that has trained thousands of East Coast fishermen in safety practices.

On May 20, Roberge cut a fishing trip short to bring the six-man crew from his remaining boat, the Maria JoAnn, to another FPSS training in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

"I have years of experience, but not dealing with emergencies," said Roberge, whose handling of the fire led to a successful rescue with no injuries. "I make it a point to be here."

Such safety trainings -- aimed at fishermen, loggers, farmers and other workers in America's most dangerous jobs - could be scaled back or wound down entirely as soon as July, according to Reuters interviews with a dozen health and safety experts and organizations, as a result of President Donald Trump's drive to slash the size and cost of the federal government.

Those cuts have fallen heavily on the federal government's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that is a key funder of workplace safety training and research.

WINDING DOWN

The Trump administration on April 1 terminated about 875 of the roughly 1,000 employees at NIOSH, including most of the staff who provide technical advice and support to a dozen Centers for Agricultural Safety and Health focused on fishing, farming and logging workers. ...

[emphasis mine]


#2 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-05-31 06:55 PM

@#2

Oops, forgot to include the URL for the article ...

www.reuters.com


#3 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-05-31 06:56 PM

And when people start to notice the effects, the blame will fall on the remaining folks at the gutted agencies.

The building of mistrust is a feature, not a bug.

#4 | Posted by jpw at 2025-05-31 07:54 PM

@#4 ... The building of mistrust is a feature, not a bug. ...

Yup.

That's what the GOP seems to have been doing for years ...

Cutting the budgets of Federal agencies, then complaining that those Federal agencies do not look to be able to do their job.


It's an old, tried and true for a couple decades at least, tactic of the GOP, that the Trump admin seems to be exploiting to the Nth degree.

#5 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-05-31 08:17 PM

The "U.S. health system" has been ----- for everyone but billionaires. Who by the way have no right to exist.

#6 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2025-06-01 01:41 PM

Trump is slashing budgets to only double what they were before Biden quadrupled them.

#7 | Posted by visitor_ at 2025-06-02 11:55 AM

Trump is slashing budgets to only double what they were before Biden quadrupled them.

#7 | Posted by visitor_

Which budgets did Biden quadruple?

#8 | Posted by Sycophant at 2025-06-02 12:04 PM

The ones Trump is "slashing".

#9 | Posted by visitor_ at 2025-06-02 12:19 PM

"Trump is slashing budgets.."

Slash it all. It does not matter right?

So what?

Trumpy is destroying our democratic institutions.

So what?

Republican's latest motto..

"We are all gonna die."

#10 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-06-02 12:50 PM

Spending went up enormously during the Dem Panic/PlanDemic; it's over, doesn't it make sense to reduce spending?

#11 | Posted by visitor_ at 2025-06-02 12:57 PM

"Spending went up enormously during the Dem Panic/PlanDemic ... "

You mean recent the global pandemic that Trumpy tried to ignore and the Dems recognized as serious and responded to accordingly?

No worries! Odds are increasing that you will get to experience one again soon.

The rest of the species on earth are looking forward to it.

#12 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-06-02 01:20 PM

doesn't it make sense to reduce spending?

#11 | POSTED BY VISITOR_

I know this is painfully obvious and you should already know this but doesn't it matter and isn't it a really important job of leaders to choose carefully wherespending is reduced?

I mean specifically why would you reduce spending in agencies such as the NWS or the FAA when those agencies are already drastically underfunded?

#13 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-06-02 01:26 PM

JAMA reports that childhood vaccination rates against measles, mumps, and rubella have been declining in much of the US since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 1,088 confirmed measles cases were reported by 33 jurisdictions in the US. Of those cases, 96% were in people who were either unvaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown. So far in 2025, there have been 14 reported outbreaks and three people confirmed to have died of measles-related complications, all of whom were unvaccinated. Before this year, the last confirmed measles-related death in the country occurred in 2015.

Source: jamanetwork.com

"I'm not wearing a mask! You can't make me!"

"I ain't getting vaccinated and neither will my kids! D'ya hear me, you pinko Democrats?!"

#14 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-06-02 02:14 PM

Visitwit would rather cut spending on healthcare than spending on tax cuts for billionaires who don't need them at all.

He must be a billionaire himself, eh?

#15 | Posted by Corky at 2025-06-02 04:01 PM

By all means then keep the spending at pandemic levels even though the pand3mic is long over. We have plenty of ink to print more money.

#16 | Posted by visitor_ at 2025-06-02 04:26 PM

doesn't it make sense to reduce spending?
#11 | POSTED BY VISITOR_

We can tell you're a Republican.
Wanna know how?
Because your plan is to to borrow rather than spend, and never repay what was borrowed.

#17 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-06-02 04:51 PM

His plan was to not choose between providing healthcare average Americans or providing tax cuts to billionaires, but just to whine instead.

But his cult leader has chosen the billionaires for him.

#18 | Posted by Corky at 2025-06-02 05:02 PM

@#16 ... We have plenty of ink to print more money. ...

Apparently, Pres Trump agrees with your current alias, because his bill will increase the deficit by trillions of dollars, mostly by tax cuts for the wealthy like himself.

Meanwhile the spending cuts your current alias seems to triumph in #11 reduce spending by less [much less?] than a trillion dollars.

So, what does your current alias' math tell it about the size of the deficit going forward should Congress pass Pres Trump's bill?



#19 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-06-02 06:40 PM

Why do Democrats like Biden thrive on bringing in 3rd world types that do make our public swimming pools disease ridden cesspools and who murder and threaten fellow citizens. Their ilk has neither anger nor respect for others.

#20 | Posted by Robson at 2025-06-02 10:41 PM

@#20 ... Why do Democrats like Biden thrive on bringing in 3rd world types that do make our public swimming pools disease ridden cesspools and who murder and threaten fellow citizens. ...

Really?

If I may ask, why do US companies hire immigrants instead of Americans citizens?

Immigrants are not stealing jobs from Americans, American companies are giving the jobs to immmigrants instead of American citizens.


And as a follow-up, how might those American companies be viewing Pres Trump's reduction of their workforce?


Yer up.


#21 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-06-02 11:14 PM

"If I may ask, why do US companies hire immigrants instead of Americans citizens?"

Why did US companies import slaves instead of hiring American citizens?

Same answer.

#22 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-06-03 12:10 AM

Spending went up enormously during the Dem Panic/PlanDemic; it's over, doesn't it make sense to reduce spending?

#11 | POSTED BY VISITOR_

A link would help. Oh, maybe because you're full of s^% ...

www.apha.org

#23 | Posted by jpw at 2025-06-03 12:58 AM

Spending went up enormously during the Dem Panic/PlanDemic; it's over, doesn't it make sense to reduce spending?

#11 | POSTED BY VISITOR

Funny how this s%*% heap doesn't mention Trump's massive spending ...

Hey rcade, the cultists are approaching pandemic levels of misinformation. I'm ok with you canning their stupid asses for such blatant lying.

#24 | Posted by jpw at 2025-06-03 01:00 AM

"Hey rcade, the cultists are approaching pandemic levels of misinformation. I'm ok with you canning their stupid asses for such blatant lying.

#24 | Posted by jpw at 2025-06-03 01:00 AM"

Don't be a complete -----. Sack up and prove these claims wrong, if it's so obvious.

#25 | Posted by BellRinger at 2025-06-03 01:38 AM

"Funny how this s%*% heap doesn't mention Trump's massive spending ..JPW"

From my POV, here is the problem - baseline "accounting" for federal spending.

During the shutdown federal "spending/borrowing" increased substantially. Problem is, those new spending levels, which should have been temporary, became the new baseline.

I liked the concept of DOGE. I would have liked to have seen it be more deliberate and more drawn-out.

But, here we are.

#26 | Posted by BellRinger at 2025-06-03 01:44 AM

During the shutdown federal "spending/borrowing" increased substantially. Problem is, those new spending levels, which should have been temporary, became the new baseline.

The PROBLEM IS y'all repeat this crap with ad nauseam no supporting evidence like it's true.

Most Government Covid relief programs have ended.

So WTF are you even talking about?

Example ...
Now, most pandemic aid programs have either ended or are slated do so by the end of 2024. And with sectors such as public education, child care, and transit having suffered lasting harm from the pandemic, the end of that funding means state policymakers throughout the country will have tough decisions to make in the upcoming legislative session.

Among the aid programs that have already expired or are winding down in 2024 are the Medicaid funding boost that Congress authorized in 2020; nearly $16 billion in emergency funding for struggling public transit systems and for Amtrak; the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund, which provided a total of $190 billion to schools; and $24 billion in child care stabilization funds from 2021's American Rescue Plan Act. In addition, states must allocate any of their remaining flexible recovery funds by the end of this year.

www.governing.com

#27 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-06-03 01:25 PM

- 80,000 job cuts in the VA system will certainly hurt a lot of veterans

- Medicaid cuts will cause countless rural hospitals to close

- Senniors will have to drive hundreds of miles to straighten out their Social Security with the closing of SS offices across America, and wait on the phone for hours because of staff cuts

Etc etc etc

All so billionaires can get their debt-skyrocketing tax cuts.

#28 | Posted by AMERICANUNITY at 2025-06-03 01:32 PM

"bringing in 3rd world types that do make our public swimming pools disease ridden cesspools"

At the rate we are going, people from the third world will have higher vaccination rates than people from the US. They won't let your disease ridden ass into their countries.

"Don't be a complete -----. Sack up and prove these claims wrong, if it's so obvious."

Easy, so who was in charge of the executive branch during the outbreak and worst parts of the pandemic? Who wrote checks for everyone with his name on the signature line?

I'll help you out with this one.

Trump.

Wonder why Trump ordered his CDC to release a virus on the US population.

#29 | Posted by dibblda at 2025-06-04 02:00 AM

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