Breaking! HHS Rolls Back Plans to Effectuate $2 Billion in HHS Cuts in Major Victory by Advocates and Congress

Advocates for Americans with mental health, substance use and trauma related conditions hailed a decision late yesterday by the Health and Human Services Agency and White House to roll back sweeping cuts to mental health and addiction programs worth over $2 billion. 

In doing so HHS has reinstated nearly 3,000 substance use disorder and mental health services grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), an HHS agency. 

This victory was a response to a furious backlash engendered by advocacy groups from across the nation and was capped by a letter of protest by a bipartisan group of over 100 House members. 

In doing so, this action demonstrated that Congress would take immediate and resolute action to protect the health and lives of millions of Americans engaged in mental health and addiction recovery. We applaud their heartening response to make clear, per Connecticut Congress member Rosa DeLauro’s statement, that “Congress holds the power of the purse, and the Secretary must follow the law.”

We deeply appreciate Congress’ action here, underscoring co-chair of the Congressional Addiction, Treatment and Recovery Caucus House member Paul Tonko’s denunciation of HHS actions to ‘take a chain saw to our nation’s behavioral health resources.”

The Alliance was very pleased to have worked alongside a broad array of national, state and local recovery groups from around the country that jumped into action to call on the Administration to take down cuts that would have threatened the health, recovery and lives of millions of Americans who rely on SAMHA funded rehabilitation, peer support, prevention, treatment and related services every day. 

We look to HHS to send official notifications to grant recipients of the reinstatements today, recognizing that some agencies had already made very difficult decisions in response to the cuts, including laying off employees. 

Wasting no time, we will heighten our efforts to press for SAMHSA increases in the major appropriations package that Congress is looking for approve by the end of the month.