A federal judge on Friday indefinitely prohibited the Department of Health and Human Services from terminating $11 billion in public health grants set aside for states.
The order extends an earlier, more temporary ruling in April by the judge, Mary S. McElroy of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. In that earlier ruling, she found that the government could not abruptly wipe out a pandemic-era funding stream that many state and local health departments relied upon.
In the opinion Judge McElroy issued on Friday, she wrote: “The health care funding terminations would constrain the States’ infectious disease research, thwart treatment efforts to those struggling with mental health and addiction, and impact the availability of vaccines to children, the elderly, and those living in rural communities. Not to mention that the terminations were effective immediately, ignoring the States’ reliance on the funds.”
The Department announced the cutoffs on March 24. A coalition of 23 states and the District of Columbia then sued to stop the sudden change, arguing that they had been given no time to prepare for budget shortfalls and could face devastating shortages in many critical treatment areas.
Judge McElroy on Friday directed federal health agencies to “take every step necessary to effectuate this order” while the case proceeds — namely, dispersing the funds, which had already been allocated by Congress for the purposes of the state programs. Notably, however, her order only applies to those jurisdictions involved in the lawsuit.
Judge McElroy’s rulings mean that funding will remain in place for that coalition of Democratic-led states, which together represent more than 185 million Americans, or a little over half of the United States population counted in the last census.
In defending the cuts, the Trump administration has argued that since the official end of the emergency over the coronavirus pandemic in 2023, the funding was no longer necessary.
The states behind the lawsuit countered that the funding was intended to address a variety of public health problems — some of them worsened by the onslaught of Covid-19 — and that, much like other federal funding streams the Trump administration has worked to cut off, the money was authorized by Congress and could not be lawfully cut off unilaterally by the health department.
Judge McElroy’s ruling noted that the funds helped address disease outbreaks beyond the coronavirus, including measles and avian flu; bolstered mental health and substance abuse services; and helped support clinics in underserved areas.
“Though Congress appropriated the funds during the pandemic,” she wrote, the funds “ did much more than address Covid-related public health concerns.”
Zach Montague is a Times reporter covering the U.S. Department of Education, the White House and federal courts.
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