WASHINGTON, April 22 (UPI) -- Health care proponents warn that the Department of Health and Human Services' proposed 12% budget reduction would widen racial disparities and gut critical infectious disease funding.
The 2027 fiscal year departmental budget proposes eliminating the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and stripping $923 million in HIV/AIDS funding, among other cuts that Congress rejected last year.
"This is truly a life or death situation," said Timothy Jackson, advocacy director for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. "By 2030, if these cuts were to be enacted ... we would see 143,486 new diagnoses across the country."
Members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions drilled down on proposed cuts during a Wednesday hearing at which Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified.
Senators questioned the cancellation of "woke" grants and expressed concern about the future of maternal healthcare, minority healthcare and HIV/AIDS programming.
