It won’t be easy, but legislators must listen to the pleas of public health officials for continued state assistance.
The Legislature should reject Gov. Gary Locke’s budget proposal to cut aid to health departments around the state. Even in a financial crunch, it makes no sense to reduce basic health services that protect the entire state’s population.
That’s exactly what will happen if the state reduces support for health departments, as the Snohomish Health District’s Dr. M. Ward Hinds testified Friday.
To the governor’s office, the proposed reduction is part of an end to temporary help for cities, counties and health districts, which suffered losses when Initiative 695 ended the motor vehicle excise tax. Unfortunately, however, no substitute source of health funding has been developed by the governor and the Legislature in the two years since I-695’s approval. Minimally, legislators and the governor have an obligation to continue this support of health departments until they create new options.
More reasonably, the state should commit itself to long-term support of health districts throughout Washington. As outgoing U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher has pointed out, the anthrax crisis revealed dramatic differences in the ability of health departments across the country to respond. The same differences would show up in any examination of counties around this state. In the wake of growing bioterror threats, legislators should try to make sure all regions have strong county public health services.
It’s encouraging that President Bush plans to help state and local health departments prepare for bioterror threats. The federal aid, however, won’t be nearly enough to make up for the proposed cuts. Hinds, who is chair of the Washington State Association of Local Public Health Officials, said that the total Bush proposal would bring about $20 million to this state. At least some of that will go to hospitals and the state health department, which should be helped to update its laboratory capabilities, Hinds said. And federal money will come with strings tightly attached.
Without their current state support, health departments will be less able to meet their core responsibilities, such as tracking disease outbreaks whether from meningitis or e-coli cases. If there were a bioterror attack here, health departments would be in no shape to respond. Last fall, even without single anthrax case in Washington, health departments struggled to keep up with the calls they received.
In a budget crunch that is less than a full-fledged crisis, lawmakers must preserve basic public health services for everyone.
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