November 7, 2005

Dear Chairman Specter and Senator Harkin:

The Coalition for Health Services Research, representing over 3,800 researchers and 125 organizational affiliates, is concerned about the funding provisions in H.R. 3010 pertaining to the funding of research within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Our concern focuses on funding in the Senate Labor-Health and Human Services appropriation bill that requires CMS to fund the Real Choice System Change Grant ("Real Choice") program. This program is zeroed out in the President's budget request. While we have not taken a position on whether or not Real Choice should continue, we do believe that if the Senate does support this program and wishes it continued, it should be fully funded. Instead, the Senate bill only provides $33 million while mandating that CMS spend $40 million. Failure to fully fund Real Choice means that the $7 million shortfall must come out of other projects that CMS is mandated by the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) to undertake.

The President's budget requested a base of $45 million for CMS to conduct research, demonstrations, and program evaluations. While this represents a significant increase over the FY 2005 request of $28 million, it did not include any funding for the Real Choice System Change Grant program. Rather, the $17 million increase is necessary to fund the important research and demonstrations projects mandated by MMA. Last year, research mandated under the MMA was funded from a direct MMA appropriation and thus was not incorporated in the FY 2005 research base.

We would be pleased to meet with you or your staff to provide further information in support of this position. Please contact our director of government relations, Jon Lawniczak, at either (202) 292-6743 or jonathan.lawniczak@academyhealth.org.

Sincerely,

W. David Helms, Ph.D.
President and CEO