Section 4002 of the President’s health care law put $15 billion into the Prevention and Public Health Fund (PPHF) over a 10-year period. After 10 years, the law mandates the PPHF receive $2 billion per year forever. The Secretary of Health and Human Services has nearly unlimited authority to spend these dollars.
The health care law explicitly states that the PPHF must fund innovative prevention and wellness strategies that “help restrain the rate of growth in private and public sector health care costs”. The law goes on to say the HHS Secretary can transfer money in the PPHF fund “to accounts within the [HHS] to increase funding … for prevention, wellness, and public health activities including prevention research, health screenings, and initiatives such as the Community Transformation grant program, the Education and Outreach Campaign Regarding Preventative Benefits, and immunization programs.”
In April 2013, however, HHS released its long-delayed distribution plan for the fiscal year 2013 PPHF funds. The department intends to transfer $454 million – almost half of the $949 million available for the fiscal year – to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to help pay for ongoing health care law implementation activities. This includes the Administration’s creation of the law’s federal insurance exchange, as well as public relations campaigns.
The Obama Administration is using the PPHF as a slush fund to implement its health care law. Even the law’s staunchest supporters say the PPHF was never intended to be used as a piggy bank to finance and promote the law’s implementation. What remains unclear is exactly how much money Secretary Sebelius has transferred within the HHS budget to implement the health care law. That is why the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform requested that she provide a detailed financial account showing the exact funding sources HHS will use to set up and operate the federal exchange, as well as the slick PR campaign designed to sell it.
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