Why a Decision on the Fiscal Cliff is Important to Your Health

By Hope Gillette, Voxxi

Solving the fiscal cliff issue is current priority for the United States government, as at midnight on December 31, 2012, provisions from the Budget Control Act of 2011 will go into effect.

Creating a solution is important because a number of temporary payroll cuts and tax breaks will be nullified for the upcoming year, and without a new agreement regarding spending, more than 1,000 government programs are slated for substantial cuts. Among those planned cuts, explains CNN, are a number of health-related programs.

“You wouldn’t necessarily see the impact right at first, but agencies like the CDC will have to prioritize. Something will have to give, so you’d see a lab close here and a monitoring program end here, so down the road they won’t able to monitor, say, a disease outbreak nearly as well as they can now,” said Indivar Dutta-Gupta, who works with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “The problem is, we already are seeing historic low spending on these types of programs…”

Which health programs are at risk from fiscal cliff decision?

• Food safety: The plant and animal health inspection budget will be decreased by $71 million dollars, and the Food Safety and Inspection agency budget will be decreased by more than $1 billion dollars. Cuts could mean fewer inspectors and a less monitored food supply.
• Medicare: Medicare funding would be decreased by approximately $11 billion, decreasing payment options to hospitals and long-term care facilities.
• National Institutes of Health: This government agency funds numerous disease research projects around the country, and an unsolved fiscal cliff would mean a budget loss of more than $2.5 billion.
• Low-income food assistance: WIC and other government programs designed to provide food assistance for low-income families would lose $543 million dollars.
• Centers for Disease Control: The CDC stands to lose $464 million from its budget which could impact the agency’s ability to provide vaccinations and monitor disease outbreaks accurately.
• Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes: This program, which is geared toward keeping housing safe for low-income families, would lose approximately $10 million dollars from its budget.
• Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program: A projected $30 million budget reduction would apply to the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, which helps prevent abuse, neglect and childhood injuries.
• Department of Homeland Security, Office of Health Affairs: Tasked with protecting citizens from biological, terrorist, nuclear, and chemical attacks, among other things, this program is scheduled for a $14 million budget cut.
• Social Security: Social Security, if no solution is found regarding the fiscal cliff, will take a $241 million budget cut.

While the healthcare industry will take hits should the fiscal cliff remain unresolved, some government officials do not like the purposed solutions any better. According to a report from ABC News, President Obama has purposed raising tax revenue by $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years while still cutting $600 billion from programs such as Medicare. The purposed solution also includes more stimulus spending totaling approximately $200 billion dollars.

“All of this stimulus spending would literally be more than the spending cuts that he was willing to put on the table,” criticized House Speaker John Boehner.

This article was first published in Voxxi.

Hope Gillette is an award winning author and novelist. She has been active in the veterinary industry for over 10 years, and her experience extends from exotic animal care to equine sports massage. She shares her home with four cats, a dog, a horse, and her tolerant husband.