An Across-the-Board Attack on Your Lungs
(February 26, 2013)—
Think the sequester will spare your lungs? Don't hold your breath! Here are ways the across-the-board budget cuts will leave you breathless.
- Sequester will impact every state. Funding for public health programs will be slashed, including funds that often go directly to state responses to public health threats, like a pandemic flu outbreak. Read more about how these cuts will affect your state and its ability to keep you safe from a pandemic.
- More than $100 million in budget cuts to EPA's Air program are proposed, meaning fewer "cops on the beat" to enforce clean air laws. This means more bad air quality days, endangering the lives of millions of people, especially kids with asthma. But that's not all. Learn more about how the sequester could leave you gasping for air.
- Across-the-board budget cuts are far from "fiscally responsible." They recklessly threaten our health. Learn how the fiscal cliff threatens blunt, across-the-board cuts to vital programs in the fight against lung disease – including research, education and prevention programs.
You may not "feel" the impact these sweeping budget cuts will have on your lung health immediately, but the affects will be direct, personal, and for some, deadly.
Lung disease is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. All of us have been and will be touched in some way by the tragic toll of diseases like lung cancer, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and others. Now we risk losing ground in our long fight against these diseases.
Investments in vital public health programs help guard against asthma attacks, illness, premature deaths, lost work and school days. Protecting health and saving lives helps curb health care costs, and safeguards those that bear the heaviest burden but can afford it the least, like the elderly and our kids.
Don't hold your breath waiting for the sequester to pass you by – take action now. Let Congress know that our lungs don't need to go off the fiscal cliff.
