WASHINGTON, DC, September 10, 2025 – In today’s fiscal year 2026 Labor-HHS markup, the committee majority advanced a devastating nearly $2 billion in cuts to federal HIV programs. That means eliminating all CDC HIV prevention funding — about $1 billion — slashing $525 million from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, and zeroing out the Minority HIV/AIDS Fund. It would also end the Trump Administration’s own Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative. If this proposed text becomes law, more than 550,000 people who rely on federal programs for treatment and prevention could lose access to care and supportive services. Health centers, Ryan White providers, and community clinics — already strained and under pressure from recent funding cuts, operating on thin margins, and facing workforce capacity challenges — would be pushed further to the brink.
For more than 35 years, both aisles of Congress have backed HIV programs because they are among the soundest investments and strongest cost-savers in public health. Longstanding data and Medicaid research further demonstrate that expanding access to HIV prevention with broad eligibility saves states millions in healthcare costs. Using CDC’s own data, HIV prevention programs have already saved the U.S. more than $1.2 billion in medical costs through testing alone, and meeting national prevention goals could avoid an additional $100 billion in lifetime treatment costs by 2030.
HealthHIV and the National Coalition for LGBTQ Health call on Congress to reject the committee’s markup and stop these cuts from reversing hard-won progress. House lawmakers — and future Senate companion bills — must keep HIV programs funded. Protecting crucial prevention, care, and treatment initiatives is essential to keeping America healthy.
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