A bipartisan trio of lawmakers is pushing to lock in annual funding and increase dollar amounts for a program aimed at reducing infant mortality for families as the opioid crisis continues to sweep across parts of the U.S.
Reps. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, Evan Jenkins, R-W.V., and John Yarmouth, D-Ky., are proposing a five-year reauthorization of the federal Healthy Start program at the funding levels from 2009-13 before the program expired.
The program, which is run by the Health Resources & Services Administration, an agency within the Department of Health & Human Services, received $120 million per year in funding during the five-year stretch before it expired in 2013. Despite the program’s authorization expiring, the program continued to receive annual funding through appropriations process. The lawmakers point out that the program, without official authorization, may not be funded at all, or could see its levels continue to drop.
The Trump administration proposed boosting funding to $128 million. However, the House-passed bill’s funding sits at at the 2017 spending level of $103 million, much to the ire of the Ohio Democrat. The lawmakers wanted to see annual funding locked in at $120 million.
“The funding came in about $25 million short from even what the budget request was, and this is just a program that has a huge impact on people in my community,” Ryan said in an interview, adding that Ohio ranks 45th in infant mortality, largely due to the opioid epidemic.
“In Youngstown, Ohio, a baby born in Iran has a greater chance of surviving the first year than an African-American baby born in Youngstown,” Ryan said. “To me, this is just totally unacceptable, and the Healthy Start for infants program uses a lot of community based approaches from prenatal onto the early stages, dealing with mothers and families, and it works. It’s one of those programs that works. We just need to get adequate revenue.”
Along with West Virginia, Kentucky, and New Hampshire, Ohio has been ravaged by the opioid crisis. In 2016, 4,000 Ohioans died from drug overdoses. So far in 2017, 964 overdoses have been reported in Trumbull County, Ryan’s home county. In one recent week in the county alone, 59 overdoses, and five deaths were reported.
Ryan is particularly concerned after Congress allowed funding to expire for the Children’s Health Insurance Program at the end of September. Funding is still available to the states, but will begin to expire over the next few weeks and months, potentially affecting nine million who depend on the program.
“That’s why I’m worried about it. We had bipartisan support for the CHIP program. There was a 5-year reauthorization bill on the floor of the Senate, but [it] wasn’t even scheduled for a vote,” Ryan said. “These programs get politicized, and at the end of the day they save us a lot of money, so it’s important for us to kind of highlight the importance of them and try to move to get them authorized and funded so that we’re saving money on those programs.”
“It’s a good investment for the taxpayer,” he added.
The northeast Ohio lawmaker is banking on Jenkins, the lone Republican in the trio, to push the Trump administration for backing of the authorization. Jenkins says he was encouraged by the administration’s dedication to the program with the proposed $128 million for 2018 funding, but realizes there is a lot of work to do to move the authorization forward.
“I appreciate the fact that the Trump-proposed plussing up of the Healthy Start program, and while many accounts under [Director of Office of Management and Budget Director Mick] Mulvaney’s scalpel got cut … I actually was pleased and appreciated the Trump administration’s plussing up,” Jenkins said. However, he said he has not discussed the proposed five-year reauthorization with the White House.
For now, Ryan says, the goal is to sell the plan to his fellow lawmakers, especially as the opioid epidemic continues to ravage his state and district.
“I’m going to continue to push it,” Ryan said. “We’re talking about $128 million, which isn’t a ton of money down in Washington.”
