825: National Day of Racial Healing, New Administration Early Priorities

SUMMER JOHNSON: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Friday, January 17, 2025. I'm Summer Johnson. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

HARPER-LEVY:

Racial healing begins with acknowledging the past, addressing biases, and creating systems that promote equity.

JOHNSON: 

On Monday and Tuesday of next week, the nation will recognize Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and the National Day of Racial Healing. ASTHO's Natasha Harper-Levy says internal DEI work is important, especially when you're trying to make a difference in the lives of others, like ASTHO is.

HARPER-LEVY: 

Before you can go out and make a contribution to the world, you first need to understand what the world looks like, and you do that at home. You do that within your organization.

JOHNSON: 

ASTHO will spend Tuesday at a day-long workshop where racial healing will be top of mind.

HARPER-LEVY:

We will be taking our first ASTHO Day of 2025 and using it to provide those guided discussions. The panels provide staff with articles, videos, as well as a few personal stories related to racial healing that can help spark some meaningful conversation.

JOHNSON: 

Learn more about the National Day of Racial Healing by clicking the links in the show notes.

Plus, an ASTHO blog article dives into how you can integrate race and ethnicity data into public health. O'Keyla Cooper has more.

O'KEYLA COOPER: 

Integrating race and ethnicity data is key to addressing health disparities in an ASTHO Q&A blog article, cohort four of ASTHO's Diverse Executives Leading in Public Health program shares valuable insights, successes, and challenges from local, state, and territorial perspectives. You can read the full blog article by clicking the link in the show notes.

JOHNSON: 

Now, next week, Washington will have a new administration. ASTHO's Jeffrey Ekoma joins us this morning to discuss what to expect in this week's View from Washington, D.C. report.

Jeffrey, we talked to Carolyn last week, and she was telling us that Capitol Hill was just opening up for the new 119th Congress, and of course, President-Elect Trump will be inaugurated next week. So, in preparation for all of that, tell us what Congress is doing right now.

JEFFREY EKOMA: 

Yes, there's been a flurry of activity as Congress prepares for the incoming Trump administration. In addition to finalizing leadership positions among various committees by both parties, the Senate has begun the process of considering the nominations of individuals for several cabinet-level positions. We do expect that the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to serve as the next Secretary of HHS will be considered in the next couple of weeks. It seems likely that both the Senate Health and Finance Committees will hold confirmation hearings prior to the consideration by the full Senate body. There's also been some discussion about using the reconciliation process to pass legislation related to incoming President Trump's agenda, specifically around tax cuts and addressing issues at the border related to priorities for the incoming administration. We're also tracking news reports that the administration is likely preparing more than 100 executive orders that will be released as early as Day One. And, as context, these orders are enforceable within their legal and constitutional bounds, and Congress and the general public opinion, you know, can influence their implementation. There are things that we'll obviously track really closely and I look forward to sharing an update with the listeners.

JOHNSON: 

You talked about reconciliation. Can you give us more background on reconciliation and how that impacts public health funding?

EKOMA: 

Yeah, absolutely. Reconciliation is a unique budget process used to make changes to laws affecting the federal budget. It allows the Senate to bypass the 60-vote threshold required to pass bills with just a simple, majority 51-vote. There are unique restrictions, though, but generally provisions within the bill must directly impact the budget and cannot increase the federal deficit. Now, it's a fairly lengthy process, but the first part of the process requires adopting a budget resolution that outlines spending and revenue targets. So, late last week, a menu of more than $5 trillion in cuts was released to serve as options to finance the bill. Potentially, while the proposed cuts are not currently in any legislation, they are nonetheless slightly concerning to us. There was a proposal to cut about $2.3 trillion to Medicaid, a cut to the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which funds about 13% of CDC's budget, and also 100% of the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention program, among a host of other things. Needless to say, this top priority for us and something that we'll continue to track as well.

JOHNSON: 

What other activities are top of mind for your team?

EKOMA: 

Yeah, we're extremely excited about the opportunity to reach out to offices of newly sworn-in members of Congress and their staff in the coming weeks, to orient them to us, and to ASTHO, and to who our members are, and really to serve to them as a resource for all things related to governmental public health. We're also looking forward to connecting with staff to sort of continue to share our priorities and the priorities of our members as it pertains to FY 25 funding, which will expire on March 14. Look forward to sharing feedback that we get from those engagements and then many more in the future.

JOHNSON: 

The ASTHO Government Relations team is going to be pretty busy.

EKOMA: 

Busy, but we're excited and recharged to be able to do some amazing work on behalf of our members.

JOHNSON: 

Fantastic. Thank you always, Jeffrey.

EKOMA: 

Thank you so much.

JOHNSON: 

Finally, next Wednesday, January 22, learn how the Building Capacity to Advance Health program can elevate your leadership skills in governmental public health. The webinar will be online starting at 3 p.m. ET. Sign up using the link in the show notes.

That'll do it for today. This newscast will be off Monday in observance of the holiday, but we'll be back early, as always, Tuesday morning with more ASTHO news and information. I'm Summer Johnson, you're listening to the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great weekend.