This article has been updated.
Politico has discovered that the underfunded US Department of Health and Human Services program known as HHS AIDS Epidemic Response remains burdened by parts of the GOP-driven sequester. While agencies such as the Defense Department and the State Department have their budgets increased, that has not been true for HHS, according to the federal funding guidebook Docufinder, a previously unreported reference to the political atmosphere.
For a five-year period between fiscal year 2013 and fiscal year 2018, the total amount for HHS AIDS Epidemic Response allocated to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was $1.2 billion. Between the two fiscal years, the sum rose to $1.47 billion.
CNN previously reported on figures from HHS by estimating that if Congress met its recent spending levels, the federal government would spend $1.6 billion on the program in 2019.
This additional CDC contribution, $212 million, is explained by it being a war bonus given to the agency in fiscal year 2018. That payout has since been eliminated.