‘The safety net of the safety net’: Why education and transportation cuts are also public health cuts In Q&A, Mass. health commissioner Robert Goldstein articulates the pain states are feeling

https://www.statnews.com/2025/06/03/trump-public-health-cuts-impact-every-state-q-and-a-with-robert-goldstein/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_givKhPvlHzXvEiWk56gu45XAE_M82O5fxjIufB8nUOjnNrv9B9xsm9LZ02n6AyWAmmtIW-MEs30BN-Omm7gl46sNMWQ&_hsmi=364493783&utm_content=364493783&utm_source=hs_email Q&A: Mass. health commissioner articulates the pain states are feeling Across the country, some state health officials have publicly toed the Trump party line when speaking about the administration’s dismantling of public health infrastructure, including $11.4 billion in funds clawed back from local and state public health departments. “As the federal government continues to cut waste and enhance efficiency, we are confident these changes will not impact our ability to serve Tennesseans,” the Tennessee Department of Health told STAT in March, when asked about the cutting of Covid-related federal funding. But that’s not the strategy taken by Robert Goldstein, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. To Goldstein, these threats are being felt across the country. “The needs that this department has are the same as the Texas department’s or the North Dakota department’s,” he said, when he sat down with STAT’s Eric Boodman earlier this spring. “But as a state health officer of a Democratic-leaning state with a Democratic administration and a Democratic state house and a congressional delegation of all Democrats, it is easier for me to articulate the pain we’re feeling.” Goldstein spoke with Eric about the challenges of this moment, and how funding cuts will hit each state differently.