Highs & Lows as Governor Weighs in on Budget

Highs & Lows as Governor Weighs in on Budget

Due to the weakened financial situation of Massachusetts as a whole, cutbacks have occurred in various programs across the state and have affected the funding of some essential cancer-fighting and prevention programs. The Conference Committee settled budgetary differences between the MA House and Senate proposals and sent these funding levels to the Governor for his consideration: 

1. Health Promotion and Disease Prevention programs to be funded at $8.45 million, an amount which is well below last year’s level, but more than we were at risk to lose.  This program includes funding for breast, cervical, colorectal, prostate, and ovarian cancer education and screenings. 
2. Suffering a more drastic cut is the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program which is funded at $5 million, a 61% reduction from last year’s budget.
3. The Office of Health Equity which coordinates all state agency efforts to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities has no funding allocated to the office at this time; however, its existence has been preserved until funding becomes available.  – A win!
4. Commonwealth Care, the state’s subsidized insurance plan for low income residents and a key piece of our successful health reform suffered an eligibility change that would eliminate coverage for 28,000 legal immigrants in Massachusetts, denying these residents access to quality, affordable health care.

Having received these suggested funding levels from the Conference Committee, Governor Patrick weighed in, setting the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at $7.3 million and the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program at $5 million while opting to maintain the language for the Office of Health Equity without the funding. The Governor did not veto the Legal Immigrant Commonwealth Care issue as we had hoped for, but added an alternative solution to maintain partial coverage for these 28,000 Massachusetts residents at risk of losing their health insurance. 

So what steps can we now take?  We are asking the Legislature to:

1. Override Governor Patrick’s funding reduction of $1.2 million for the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention budget, to provide $8.45 million for these life-saving programs.
2. Adopt the Governor’s amendment to maintain health care coverage for the 30,000 legal immigrants at risk of losing their insurance and access to quality, affordable health care.

Please take a moment to contact your State Senator and State Representative in support of our efforts.