Still no budget cutting deal in Congress that would avoid billions in automatic cuts that take effect Friday.
But 13abc is following the process and giving you some perspective on what could happen.
Specific cuts that could affect health care in Lucas County.
The White House proposed this sequestration idea and congress agreed to it. But now the White House has released this list of cuts Ohio could face and some of them affect public health.
Ebony Jones gets help feeding her daughter Zakia and does not want to see her assistance reduced. "I'd have a hard time getting fruit and vegetables," she told 13abc. "We'd have a hard time getting milk cause it's very expensive."
According to the White House, in Ohio, 5,000 fewer kids could get vaccines for diseases like measles, mumps and whooping cough.
Our state would lose $1.1 million to combat infectious and other diseases... .
Lose $3.3 million to treat substance abuse...
A 7,600 fewer HIV tests could be given because the sequester cuts.
"I think they're not well thought out."
Doctor David Grossman is the head of the Lucas County's Health Department. He says the department stands to lose $550,000 in federal aid... an 8-percent cut.
That would mean less abstinence counseling and fewer vaccinations, with potentially devastating effects, Dr. Grossman told 13abc reporter Bill Hormann. "One kid dieing of meningitis, just one that we could have prevented from these cuts being so Draconian, is a kid that's dead," he said.
Grossman understands the need to cut the debt but he says these are indiscriminate cuts... that hurt real people, like 11-month old Hunter's mom who has no where to turn if she cannot get help from WIC.
Tabitha Boren said, "It's just me, daddy and the kids, so we really wouldn't have anything."
And the concern is these cuts are coming just as the services are needed most.
The health department could see cuts to the Lead Paint detection program and dental care and the 60-plus program that helps seniors.
Teal people use these programs but the government has a real debt problem and a real deadline is looming.
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