Headline Roundup • March 27th, 2025
Trump Admin Cuts $12 Billion in State Healthcare Funding
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Officials from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Wednesday cuts of around $12 billion in state healthcare funding.
The Details: Funds were allocated to states during COVID-19. $11 billion of the cut funds were designated for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and $1 billion were from grants to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHS). In a statement, HHS said it “will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.”
For Context: Grants to the CDC went to tracking, controlling, and preventing infectious diseases, including measles and bird flu. SAMHS relied on these funds to continue addiction research aimed at reducing overdose deaths. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) said the loss of these funds to her state could cost more than 200 healthcare jobs in Washington.
How the Media Covered It: Reuters (Center bias) focused on how cuts will affect disease prevention work, writing that officials in Texas responding to the measles outbreak there were ordered to stop work supported by these grants. NPR (Lean Left) emphasized the cuts’ potential consequences for addiction research, writing that overdose deaths have decreased over the last few years, “thanks in part to a surge in funding for addiction treatment during the Biden administration.” Fox News (Right) highlighted cuts to DEI- and gender-related healthcare programs, quoting HHS’s statement that the cuts affected research on issues that “do not pertain to American’s health to any significant degree.”
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Featured Coverage of this Story
Fox News Digital
Rod Lamkey Jr./The Associated Press
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) terminated more than $330 million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and gender research in the state of California alone, Fox News Digital learned Thursday.
"HHS terminated more than $330 million in wasteful research funding to organizations in California that is not aligned with NIH and HHS priorities," HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a Thursday statement to Fox News Digital.
NPR (Online News)
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
State and county public health departments and nonprofit groups are reeling after the Trump administration announced abrupt cancellation and revocation of roughly $11.4 billion in COVID-era funding for grants linked to addiction, mental health and other programs.
"This is chopping things off in the middle while people are actually doing the work," said Keith Humphreys, an addiction policy researcher at Stanford University, who also volunteers doing harm reduction work with people in addiction. He warned the move could trigger layoffs and treatment disruptions.
Reuters
Reuters
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services canceled around $12 billion in federal grants to states that were allocated during the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal department and state officials said on Wednesday.
The grants were being used to track, prevent and control infectious diseases, including measles and bird flu, as well as track mental health services and fund addiction treatment, said lawmakers and state governors, who sharply criticized the move.
