We learned this week that Connecticut is losing $155 million in federal grants as a part of the cost cutting that’s being done in Health and Human Services in Washington. They say it’s unused federal pandemic money.
We learned this week that Connecticut is losing $155 million in federal grants as a part of the cost cutting that's being done in Health and Human Services in Washington. They say it's unused federal pandemic money.
Healthcare administrators here in Connecticut say that's not true, and things like genetic testing for babies and disease prevention are now at risk.
Representative Cristin McCarthy Vahey (D-Fairfield), is the co chair of the Health Committee.
Mike Hydeck: First up, is the money still in the accounts? Is it gone already? This was, this came upon Connecticut pretty quickly.
Get top local stories in Connecticut delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC Connecticut's News Headlines newsletter.
Cristin McCarthy Vahey: Very quickly. Our Department of Public Health learned that the money was stopped on the 24th and they learned on the 25th. And we heard from one commissioner, that some of those portals and the ability to access was actually frozen, so stop work orders immediately.
Mike Hydeck: So some of the things that are affected are literally genetic testing on babies. I read an article in the Connecticut Mirror talking about how, you know, some of these things are life saving technologies, that you can see a problem coming down the road and avert it. What happens to babies and the elderly who rely on some of these programs?
Cristin McCarthy Vahey: Well, I want to make clear that we are still going to be working to make sure that everyone is getting the support and services that they need, and that people will be safe. But the one public health director who I talked to just today said, 'we're now dealing with the chaos that has been caused by this last-minute decision.' So all of our local public health directors who have contracts and our departments are looking at how they can shift things around to make things work, but there's no way that we can just immediately backfill over $150 million in funds. It's not possible.
Face the Facts
Face the Facts with NBC Connecticut goes beyond the headlines, asking newsmakers the tough questions, giving an in-depth analysis of the big stories.
Mike Hydeck: And that's affecting hospitals across the state, right? So it's UConn Health and all the above.
Cristin McCarthy Vahey: It's affecting a lot. I focus a lot on the local health districts. I think that's where really it does affect all these things. You're right. The infant screening tools, that is a huge piece. But there are kind of, there are other ways that we can communicate information, but they're going backwards. We learned in COVID that we need to be able to be quick, efficient, use data properly to make decisions, and that's what the Department of Public Health was using some of these funds to do, to help streamline and improve the communication systems. We're going backwards. We don't want to go backwards when it comes to fighting infectious disease.
Mike Hydeck: So the money is coming out of communication systems as well, would you say that?
Cristin McCarthy Vahey: It's coming out of how we process and communicate data. Absolutely.
Mike Hydeck: Considering Elon Musk is the king of data, why would it go backwards? That doesn't seem, it doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem like that would be, even be his method, though. How do we know that things are, how are we going backwards, exactly?
Cristin McCarthy Vahey: What our Department of Public Health Commissioner Juthani told us yesterday is that in some cases, we're now going to have to go back to faxing information, as opposed to being able to use data systems. And a lot of public health departments around the nation, this is something happening everywhere. Pre-COVID, there was a lot of paper, a lot of fax. That was pretty common. Public health is traditionally underfunded. What happened during COVID is, we brought those funds up. And these monies were actually meant to help people build that infrastructure, to help states build those systems, and that's exactly what Connecticut was doing with the money. Now we're partway into that, and some of these efforts just have to stop.
Mike Hydeck: So after five years, we're still only partway into that. That's something to be said, too. This should have been built out in five years. I mean, digital stuff is lightning fast, so that's an interesting kind of thing. Why isn't it built out yet? How long do you think this is going to take to play out, as far as trying to come up with a solution? I mean, look, everybody's talking about, we need to change the way we spend in this state, because we have so much in our rainy day fund. Does that happen? Is that a discussion that happens moving forward?
Cristin McCarthy Vahey: Everything has to be on the table at this point, and we're, how long is this going to play out? Every day, the rules of the game change. So we're still waiting to hear what Washington is going to do when it comes to Medicaid funding, which is, of course, one of the biggest chunks of our budget. And all of these pieces impact each other. So I think we're going to continue to see this play out. And the other thing, Mike, that I have said is that these cuts, these cuts to core infrastructure work, they're compounding. So some of this work and some of the impact of the loss of ability to do this work, we might not see the impacts of that for months or years to come, because this work builds on each other.
Mike Hydeck: Now, is this pretty much a done deal? I mean, the state attorney general is like, Oh, we're going to file yet another lawsuit against the Trump administration.' Is there any hope in that? Or is that really just paperwork that's going to extend this at all?
Cristin McCarthy Vahey: Well, I'm not a lawyer. I can't answer that question. But I would say we will hold on to whatever hope we can. I think we're going to fight in whatever way we possibly can. But in the meantime, our health districts, our department, is left with what it is. $150+ million, not to mention the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. So the loss of these funds across these agencies, it impacts today. It's impacting now. It's impacting in terms of how we can provide immunizations for people in our most underserved neighborhoods. That's a real impact, and these services are now no longer available.
Mike Hydeck: And the interesting thing is, one of the tenets of the Trump administration is stopping fentanyl from coming across the border. Trying to get people naloxone is part of what's funded in this.
Cristin McCarthy Vahey: Absolutely, absolutely. We know that opioid deaths are still, we're still at an epidemic level level, but we know that those deaths have come down thanks to naloxone and the distribution and education around Narcan. Why would we want to cut that?
Mike Hydeck: It's going to be really interesting to see how the State of Connecticut pivots to try to make sure services are maintained.
