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June 3, 2006
Dear Chairman Specter and Senator Harkin: The Friends of the CDC’s NCHS wish to thank you and the members of the Subcommittee for their support last year in providing the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) with a $19 million increase. This increase was vital to restoring the number of surveys conducted by the agency and expanding the number of questions asked in each survey. Without the additional funding, our ability to monitor the U.S. health care system would have been placed at serious risk. Yet, additional resources are needed in the short-term to prevent the agency from slipping back into crisis. The data produced by NCHS will be needed even more in the future given changing demographics, both in responding to an aging population and eliminating disparities in health care, and to be able to effectively respond to the increasing costs of federal entitlement programs. We urge you to provide at least $165 million for NCHS in FY 2006, an increase of $56 million. Even this additional funding is a small amount when compared with the $35 billion the federal government spends on health research each year. The rationale for this increase and a breakdown of proposed expenditures are detailed below. In order to ensure the current and short-term stability of the agency and to maintain existing programs, the Friends of CDC’s NCHS strongly endorse the need for additional funding over the President’s budget request of $109 million in order to cover built-in and one-time costs. NCHS surveys are fielded and analyzed continually. Every day field agents conduct household interviews, operate examination centers, and obtain records from state vital records offices and health practitioners. Maintaining these operations is logistically challenging and costly. The largest share of the NCHS appropriation is devoted to these ongoing operational costs. It is therefore critical that increased appropriations are provided to keep pace with increasing costs. NCHS cannot absorb cost increases associated with the operation of its surveys and databases in an already sparse operation without cutting into the key elements of its program – the size, scope, quality, and timeliness of its surveys. Funding difficulties for NCHS programs in the past, made it necessary for the Subcommittee to provide a “catch-up” increase in FY 2005. With the issue of how indirect funding was recouped by the CDC resolved, our goal is to avoid the gradual attrition that negatively impacted NCHS surveys in the past decade. We seek to repair this damage and provide much needed data on the nation’s health and health care system. And these core program costs will need to be addressed before new programs or enhancements can be undertaken by NCHS. In the longer-term, the Friends of CDC’s NCHS believe that our nation and its leaders lack the information needed to guide policy and inform decision-making. Members of our Coalition are often in the forefront of providing policy-makers with research and information on increasingly complex areas of public policy. We share the frustration of members of Congress and congressional staff when they turn to our Coalition for answers that we cannot provide due to a lack of credible, quality health information. Fortunately, there are investments we can make to fill these information gaps and improve our ability to answer key policy questions. Enhancements to NCHS will add crucial functionality to the agency and create a more robust health statistics program. These enhancements would require an additional funding level of $47,250,000. Added to the $8,750,000 required to maintain the agency’s current level of operations calls for a total increase of $56,000,000. When added to the base, total funding for NCHS would equal $165,000,000. Again, we deeply appreciate the Subcommittee’s support for the CDC’s NCHS last year. We urge your support for an appropriation of $165 million for this agency for FY 2006. If you have any questions regarding this letter, please contact Jon Lawniczak, Director of Government Relations for the Coalition for Health Services Research at either (202) 292-6743 or jonathan.lawniczak@academyhealth.org. Mr. Lawniczak coordinates the activities of the Friends of the CDC’s NCHS. Sincerely, Alliance for Continuing Nutrition Monitoring
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