CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Chicago’s top doctor says Congress rescinding unspent COVID money will undoubtedly have an impact on healthcare.
As part of the debt ceiling negotiations, lawmakers are taking back federal dollars that would have been used to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
The good news is funding that had already gone out to agencies like the Chicago Department of Public Health was not pulled back.
“We still have unspent COVID dollars, which we continue to spend to work on things like the wastewater and the surveillance and the shelters,” said Dr. Allison Arwady during her weekly Q&A session on Facebook Live.
“I will note though, that it undoubtedly will impact some of the future funding that CDPH would've expected to receive.”
The bad news is that the rescinded funds represent a larger issue.
Arwady said she fears history will repeat itself and the country will make the same mistake when it comes to major public health outbreaks.
“We have a very bad habit of funding public health only after an outbreak starts, funding it during that outbreak, and then returning back to pre-outbreak levels,” she said.
“Meaning that you have to dismantle all of the important capacity that you've built during that outbreak, and the next time something comes, you don't have the preparedness, you don't have the staff.”
Arwady noted CDPH is facing more than a two- thirds cut of its budget in the next couple of years.
Without additional investments at the local, state and federal level, she said it’s unlikely CDPH will be able to maintain some of its disease investigation services.
Related
Listen to our new podcast Looped In: Chicago
Listen to WBBM Newsradio now on Audacy!