The Fiscal Year 2026 Labor-HHS appropriations bill advanced by the House Appropriations Committee reflects the Trump Administration and GOP majority’s sharp pivot toward austerity in domestic health programs. Passed along party lines on September 9, the bill reduces overall discretionary spending for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) by nearly $7 billion compared to FY25, with some of the deepest reductions targeting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other public health infrastructure.
The House’s action follows a broader pattern: the President’s budget request earlier this year proposed a $32 billion cut to HHS, including a more than 50% reduction in CDC’s funding, and a dramatic restructuring of its portfolio.
The Senate, by contrast, advanced a bipartisan bill that slightly increased HHS funding, maintaining many existing structures. The divergence sets up a high-stakes negotiation with the potential for continuing resolutions and fiscal uncertainty at the end of September.
Key Cuts and Eliminations
The House bill proposes reducing CDC’s budget to $7.4 billion—a $1.7 billion cut from FY25 levels. While a handful of line items see small increases, major eliminations include:
- Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant: zeroed out, removing $160 million that supported state and local initiatives on chronic disease prevention, immunization infrastructure, and emergency readiness.
- Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ): eliminated entirely, consistent with the administration’s emphasis on “streamlining” and reducing what it calls duplicative programs.
- Refugee health services: cut from transitional medical and support programs, framed as reducing incentives for migration.
On paper, these adjustments may look like modest rebalancing. In practice, they represent a hollowing out of the CDC’s portfolio. The elimination of block grants removes flexible dollars that local health departments rely on to tailor responses to their communities. In a field where threats—from influenza to novel coronaviruses—rarely respect program silos, such flexibility is often the difference between an effective response and a delayed one.
An “America First” Budget Philosophy
The House summary document explicitly ties the appropriations package to “America First” principles. Among the provisions:
- $100 million for the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative, emphasizing rural health and telehealth, while pulling back from broader national prevention efforts.
- Restrictions on harm reduction programs, barring funds from supporting safe consumption sites or other community-level interventions.
- Renaming and rebranding efforts, such as turning AmeriCorps into the “America First Corps” and Pell workforce grants into “Trump Grants.”
These symbolic moves reflect the Administration’s messaging strategy as much as fiscal priorities, signaling a shift toward ideology-driven reorganization rather than steady support of long-term health programs.
National Security and Health Preparedness at Stake
Cuts of this magnitude are not just about balance sheets—they carry direct consequences for the nation’s health security. Programs like CDC’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness Cooperative Agreements, while held level in the House bill, cannot make up for simultaneous losses in surveillance, prevention, and workforce support. Weakening preventive health services and reducing CDC’s reach undermines the nation’s ability to respond to emerging infectious diseases, biothreats, and even routine outbreaks.
Public health experts stress that investments in prevention and preparedness are a matter of national interest. Whether responding to pandemics, opioid overdoses, or bioterrorism threats, the resilience of public health systems underpins not only population well-being but also economic and homeland security. The erosion of these systems risks leaving the U.S. vulnerable in an increasingly complex global health landscape.
The Road Ahead
The stark differences between the House and Senate bills make a Continuing Resolution (CR) likely, at least to avoid a government shutdown by the September 30 deadline. Even so, the FY26 process reveals how deeply polarized federal health policy has become. On one side, incremental bipartisan support for biomedical research and child health in the Senate; on the other, House-led reductions that reflect the administration’s drive to shrink the federal public health footprint.
Source and Further Reading:
NACCHO: House Appropriations Committee Releases FY26 Labor-HHS Bill
House Appropriations Committee: Full Committee Summary
HHS: FY 2026 Fiscal Year Budget in Brief
STAT: HHS agency responsible for health care quality research threatened with mass layoffs
Global Biodefense: Uncharted waters: How the Trump administration’s public health overhaul is rewriting America’s health
Global Biodefense: Defunding Fogarty Center: A costly blow to global health and U.S. leadership
Global Biodefense: Power over science: The risks of political control in federal grantmaking
Global Biodefense: NIH budget cuts threaten to cripple U.S. biomedical innovation and public health