CHN just released our latest edition of the Human Needs Report, our regular newsletter on national policy issues affecting low-income and vulnerable populations. This edition includes articles on the House FY17 budget delay, the Flint, MI lead poisoning emergency, and a bill to fight opioid addiction moving in the Senate. See below for the full analysis and links to each piece in the report.
Click here for the full PDF Human Needs Report: http://www.chn.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/February-29-2016.pdf

House GOP Budget Delayed by Disagreements over Spending Cuts
Disagreements among House Republicans over their FY17 budget proposal caused House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-GA) to postpone a committee meeting originally set for February 25 where the proposal would have been unveiled. Many members of the GOP, still unhappy that Congress last year approved replacing most of the scheduled sequester cuts for fiscal years 2016 and 2017, are now calling for cuts to mandatory programs.  READ MORE »

Slow Response to the Flint, MI Lead Poisoning Emergency
Negotiations in the Senate over funding to help Flint, MI have produced a bill with a bipartisan list of 10 co-sponsors, and it contains a cut to pay for the Flint relief. Yet its prospects are still uncertain. The change in Flint’s water source in April of 2014, coupled with the failure to treat the water with a chemical to reduce readily predictable corrosion, has resulted in at least doubling the number of young children with elevated blood lead levels, compared to measurements before the water source switch. READ MORE »

Senate Voting on Bill to Fight Opioid Addiction
The Senate is expected to vote Monday evening to move forward on a bill to address addiction to opioids, a class of drug that includes prescription painkillers and heroin. The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (S. 524) would expand efforts to reign in prescription drug and heroin abuse, strengthen prescription drug monitoring programs, ramp up treatment and intervention programs for individuals who are addicted to opioids, and increase access to medication that can reverse overdoses. READ MORE »

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