Editor’s Note: This story is part of a two-part series looking into how Wyoming is impacted by cuts to federal health grants. The first story focuses on Teton County programs. It can be read or heard here.
Wyoming lost upwards of $40 million in federal health grants earlier this year. While no staff at the state’s Department of Health have been cut, impacts are expected at the county level, though the extent remains unclear.
Wyoming Public Radio’s Indi Khera has been looking into impacts. She shared her reporting with Managing Editor Nicky Ouellet.
Editor’s Note: This story has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
Nicky Ouellet: We just heard how Teton County has been affected by recent federal cuts to health funding. I want to bring in our reporter, Indi Khera, who’s been reaching out to other counties and the state. Indi, what did you find out?
Indi Khera: I’ve been chatting with Natrona County. Similar to Teton County, their COVID-19 vaccine grant was terminated a few months early. They were using that to buy supplies and pay staff who worked at fall COVID vaccination clinics.
Just this spring, Natrona County had just signed a contract for two community health outreach workers, and that grant was terminated. They had initial hiring offers revoked.
NO: So pretty similar to Teton. I’m curious about the scale of these cuts at the state level. Where are they coming from, and how is that trickling down?
IK: This sort of started with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. They cut roughly $12 billion in public health grant funding to states back in March. [Those cuts are being challenged in court by states and municipalities, but Wyoming isn’t one of them.]
In Wyoming, that amount is looking like about $40 million. The Wyoming Department of Health says that $39 million of those are coming from the Public Health Division and $1 million is coming from the Behavioral Health Division.
This affects a lot of county health departments, who receive federal funding through the state health department. But the Wyoming Department of Health has not provided more information than that, so the exact impacts, other than what I can learn from the few departments who have been willing to chat with me, still remain pretty unknown.
NO: It sounds like COVID grants have been impacted. What else?
IK: Like you said, the COVID-19 vaccination grants were a big one that was affected. They supported all things vaccine. And then, like we heard in the story, the community health programs, which were actually using federal COVID-19 dollars to support these outreach workers.
There’s a big list of HHS grants that were cut, and you can see [in that list] that Wyoming also had a Substance Use Block Grant terminated, which basically helps communities implement activities that prevent and treat substance use.
NO: Looking ahead, there’s a lot going on. What should we be paying attention to?
IK: The impact, I think, is really concentrated in this round of cuts in county health departments, because the grants that were affected were being administered through the Wyoming Department of Health to these county departments.
But one thing people are watching is the federal budget and proposed cuts to Medicaid, which could have serious implications for Wyoming.
I also spoke to someone who mentioned proposed changes in federal funding for HIV prevention programs, which could have impacts on Wyoming clinics that work in this area. But most of what I’m hearing is that it's a lot of waiting and watching to see what comes next and to see how these executive orders actually get implemented.
