Public Health
Denying statehood to Washington, D.C. has detrimental effects on local public health efforts.
Congress has the power to dictate District law and how local tax dollars are spent, and D.C. residents have been denied critical public health funding that people who live in states receive.
Here are just a few examples.
D.C. residents were denied the same COVID-19 relief funding each state received.
In 2020, Congress passed a pandemic stimulus bill that provided every state with $1.25 billion in aid – but not Washington, D.C.
The bill treated the District of Columbia as a territory and provided D.C. with less than half the funding received by each state.
At the time, D.C. had more confirmed COVID-19 cases than 19 states.
Congress stopped D.C. from using local funds to slow the spread of HIV.
In 1998, Congress stopped the District of Columbia from using our own local funds to pay for needle exchange programs, which states across the country were implementing at the time to slow the spread of HIV.
When Congress finally lifted the needle exchange program ban in 2007, the District had the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the country.
When D.C. was finally able to implement needle exchange programs after the decade-long ban, HIV infection rates dropped by 70 percent.
In just two years alone, needle exchange programs prevented about 120 people from becoming infected with HIV and saved the District $44 million, according to a study by the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University.
Congress regularly blocks D.C. from using local tax dollars to fund abortion care.
Congress regularly blocks the District from using our own local tax dollars to help low-income people pay for abortions.
Specifically, Congress attaches a rider known as the Dornan Amendment to an annual appropriations bill, blocking the District from using local tax dollars to provide abortion coverage for individuals enrolled in Medicaid–something that all other states are free to do.
Bans on insurance coverage for abortion disproportionately harm poor women, and particularly poor women of color, forcing many to choose between paying for the care they need and paying for rent, bills, or other necessities.