Essential Access Health Condemns President’s FY 2026 Budget Proposal to Eliminate Title X and Dismantle Public Health Programs

Los Angeles, CA – Today, the White House released President Trump’s FY26 discretionary budget proposal, which, if adopted, would eliminate all federal funding for the Title X family planning program—the only federal program solely dedicated to providing affordable family planning and preventive health care. The budget also proposes cuts to other critical public health initiatives, including eliminating the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, and slashing the budgets for the National Institutes of Health and for programs that address maternal health disparities and STI and HIV prevention and treatment.

Essential Access Health issued the following statement in response:

“The President’s FY 2026 budget proposal is an alarming and deeply irresponsible attack on our nation’s public health infrastructure. By eviscerating funding for essential health programs, it would undermine access to critical preventive services, widen health disparities, and reverse decades of progress. This proposal seeks to dismantle our public health systems piece by piece—its cumulative impact would be devastating, leading to higher rates of preventable diseases, unintended pregnancies, and delayed diagnoses. Congress must unequivocally reject this proposal. This is a defining moment—a test of whether our leaders will fulfill their responsibility to protect public health now and for generations to come.”

Essential Access Health is the Title X grantee for California and Hawai‘i, and is one of 16 agencies affected by HHS withholding Title X funds. Essential Access Health’s STI Prevention Center is a leading resource for best practices in STI screening, testing, and treatment, and works in close partnership with the California Department of Public Health STD Control Branch, the Los Angeles County Division of HIV/STD Programs, county health departments, and community providers to prevent the spread of STIs.

###

Essential Access Health advances reproductive equity and champions quality sexual and reproductive health care for all through distributing public funding, policy advocacy, research, training and capacity building for the health care workforce, and youth and community empowerment. We work to ensure that everyone, everywhere can get the care they want and need, where and how they need it, with dignity and respect.