Illinois among blue states to keep public health dollars while red
states lose out
[September 09, 2025]
By Stateline
After the Trump administration slashed billions in state and local
public health funding from the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention earlier this year, the eventual impact on states split
sharply along political lines.
Democratic-led states that sued to block the cuts – including Illinois –
kept much of their funding, while Republican-led states lost the bulk of
theirs, according to a new analysis from health research organization
KFF.
The uneven fallout underscores how politics continues shaping health
care in the United States. The nearly 700 CDC grants were worth about
$11 billion and had been allocated by Congress during the COVID-19
pandemic.
Not just COVID-19 spending
Since then, state and local health departments had spent or planned to
spend the money not just on COVID-related efforts, but also on
prevention of other infectious diseases, support for mental health and
substance use, shoring up aging public health infrastructure, and other
needs.
The CDC grant terminations initially affected red and blue states about
evenly, according to KFF. California, the District of Columbia, Illinois
and Massachusetts — all led by Democrats — had among the largest numbers
of terminated grants.
The Illinois Department of Public Health announced on March 26 that the
federal government was pulling back over $400 million in grant funding
that previously had been approved. That included $125 million that was
earmarked to support laboratory operations in 97 local health
departments as well as $324 million for future work to prevent and treat
infectious diseases in Illinois.
Blue states sue
Illinois was one of nearly two dozen blue states and the District of
Columbia that sued the Trump administration in April, asking the court
to block the grant terminations. They argued the federal government
lacked the authority to rescind funding it had already allocated.
The suit, filed in federal court in Rhode Island, argued that Congress
appropriated those funds in various pandemic-related spending bills, and
the administration’s decisions to terminate the grants violated the
federal Administrative Procedures Act.
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The Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield are pictured on March
24, 2021, when Gov. JB Pritzker received his COVID-19 vaccine.
(Capitol News Illinois file photo by Jerry Nowicki)
“Illinois and states across the nation rely on federal grants to provide
state public health services that protect our children and residents
from serious diseases or health crises,” Raoul said in a statement at
the time. “The abrupt termination of this funding that impacts millions
of American lives is both callous and unlawful.”
A federal judge sided with the blue states and blocked the cancellations
— but she limited her injunction to the jurisdictions that filed in the
lawsuit. Nearly 80% of the grant cuts have now been restored in blue
states, according to the KFF analysis, compared with less than 5% in red
states.
According to the KFF analysis, 21 grants in Illinois were targeted for
termination prior to the lawsuit, but just two have been terminated
following the judge’s injunction.
Cuts hit red states hardest
Now four of the five states with the most canceled grants are led by
Republicans: Georgia, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas. California, which is
dominated by Democrats, kept all of its grants that had been initially
terminated.
In the West and Midwest, Democratic-led Colorado — which joined the
lawsuit — had 10 of its 11 grant terminations reversed. Its
Republican-led neighbors that did not sue, including Kansas, Nebraska,
Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming, lost all of their grants, according to the
KFF analysis.
Editor’s note: This story was originally published in Stateline.org.
Quotations from Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, and further
information about Illinois’ lawsuit, were added by CNI Editor Jerry
Nowicki. For questions, contact Stateline reporter Anna
Claire Vollers.
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