THE NEW YORK TIMES – A federal judge on Thursday temporarily barred the Department of Health and Human Services from terminating a variety of public health funds that had been allocated to states during the Covid-19 pandemic, finding that the move had left those states stranded and unable to provide critical health services.
Ruling from the bench during a hearing on Thursday, Judge Mary S. McElroy of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island said a coalition of Democratic states had easily demonstrated that the cuts had upended their public health infrastructure and jeopardized everything from childhood vaccination programs to opioid addiction treatment almost overnight.
On Tuesday, 23 states and the District of Columbia had filed a lawsuit pushing back against the Trump administration’s decision last week to cancel at least $11 billion in federal grants.
The Trump administration had said that the funding was no longer necessary because the government’s pandemic emergency declaration had officially expired nearly two years ago.
Starting on March 24, state agencies began receiving notices from the health department, bluntly informing them that the grants they had relied on for years to fight infectious disease and provide treatment for mental health and addiction had been suspended.
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“No additional activities can be conducted, and no additional costs may be incurred, as it relates to these funds,” the notices said.
But some of the funding at issue was not scheduled to expire until as late as June 2027, and the states suing said that the abrupt and seemingly arbitrary termination had left them scrambling to fill a deep hole in their budget …