◼ Obama Proposed Vaccine Cuts, But White House Blamed Sequestration - Matt Cover/CNS
The Obama administration claims that because of the $44 billion in across-the-board spending cuts (sequestration) this year, tens of thousands of American children will not be vaccinated. However, the idea to cut the vaccination program – at a rate higher than sequestration might do – was introduced by the president himself in his 2013 budget proposal over a year ago.
Known as Section 317, the immunization program provides vaccines to states for children who might not otherwise get them. In his 2013 budget, President Obama proposed cutting the 317 program by nearly $60 million.
“The FY 2013 budget request for the Section 317 immunization program reflects a program level decrease of $57.986 million,” the administration’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) budget says. The CDC is the agency in charge of the 317 grant program....
In other words, before it was warning that thousands of children all across the country would be “hurt” by the reduced vaccine funding, the White House was planning to cut the funding itself and claiming that nobody would be hurt because Obamacare would help them get insurance....
Obama’s 2013 budget never went into effect because Senate Democrats voted it down unanimously. So the Section 317 program never saw the cuts the president had directed. However, the White House did not disclose any of this information on its sequester-consequences map, neither its planned cuts nor the notion that it claimed Obamacare would take care of the problem anyway.
