More than Mammograms: Prevention Fund Focuses on Critical Conditions

On Sunday, Speaker Boehner defended the House of Representatives’ recent vote to eliminate the Prevention and Public Health Trust Fund to cover the cost of maintaining today’s low interest rates for student loans. Arguing that the Obama Administration and women’s health advocates have created a controversy out of whole cloth, the Speaker said, “I’ll guarantee you that they’ve not spent a dime of this fund dealing with anything to do with women’s health.”

Perhaps the Speaker is not aware that the top three causes of death among American women are heart disease, cancer and stroke. Or that the Prevention and Public Health Trust Fund – a provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that ensures adequate funding for preventive health initiatives – already helps communities use evidence-based programs that reduce chronic disease and prevent heart attacks, cancer, and stroke, among other conditions. Other Prevention Fund initiatives fund efforts to improve nutrition and increase physical activity to reduce obesity-related conditions, such as diabetes, and expand immunization services, including immunization against influence and pneumonia – numbers seven and eight, respectively among the leading causes of death among women. Finally, Prevention Fund investments include improving detection of and early intervention in Alzheimer’s Disease, which occupies position number five on the top-ten list.

While many Americans may not be able to specifically identify the most significant threats to women’s health, they surely understand that preventing or mitigating the effects of these diseases is an important step forward in improving women’s health in the United States. The Prevention and Public Health Trust Fund is already working to improve women’s health and the health of their families. Some policymakers may decry efforts to protect the Prevention Fund as a false political controversy, but the truth is that protecting student loans cannot come at the cost of cuts that would hurt women and their families.