Two Senate Democrats rip White House over concerns about prevention health fund, advisory panel

Two leading Senate Democrats on healthcare policy blasted the Obama administration Wednesday for slow-walking membership to a new advisory group and for aiming to slice off chunks of a $15 billion prevention health fund.

During a Wednesday hearing on chronic-disease prevention, Democrats repeatedly highlighted challenges faced by the Prevention and Public Health Fund since it was created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. One problem, Democrats said, is that the administration has offered few nominees or proposed nominees to fill the panel that advises HHS on how to spend the fund's monies.

“It took me 18 months to get one name through the White House, in terms of the preventive health council,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) “So, we're frustrated.”

The slow appointment process for advisory panel members is endangering the survival of the prevention fund, Mikulski said, which Republicans regularly deride as a “slush fund” that the HHS secretary can spend on anything she wants.

“We've got this window and we've got to show movement and momentum and the involvement of people,” she said. “Otherwise, we're going to lose momentum.”

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, pushed for inclusion of the fund into the 2010 healthcare law. He derided the president's budget proposal to cut some of the fund's monies.

“You know, that doesn't sit very well with those of us who want to see it as transformative,” Harkin said.