D.C. Council Chairman-elect Vincent Gray is hopeful that a detailed report recommending how the District should spend tobacco settlement money to best serve the public’s health needs will be finished within the next six months, he said Friday.
The council voted unanimously 12-0 late Dec. 19 to spend its $245 million of a historic 1998 tobacco settlement on tobacco and cancer programs and the construction of two emergency ambulatory clinics and a healthplex in underserved areas in Southeast.
The Rand Corporation, an independent research firm, is working on a report to determine the best practices for the District, Gray said.
“This study will, once and for all, hopefully determine how best this money can be spent once and for all,” he said.
Gray said about $110 million will be spent to construct the three facilities, with about $70 million of that going toward the healthplex, urgent care center. About $6 million will be spent to link the new facilities to an automated file-sharing system.
Another $80 million will be spent to look at urgent and emergent health issues across the city to assess other health needs, Gray said.
About $20 million has been committed to develop smoking cessation and cancer programs. Devising those programs is already under way, Gray said.
The District will also have to study the impact of the cost of subsidizing care for poor and low-income residents who utilize the new facilities, he said.
“If these are public facilities, the expectation is that any District resident can walk in there and be served,” Gray said.
