February 27, 2009
Houses Passes Omnibus; President Declares "New Era in Responsibility"
With work on the economic recovery package complete, Congress has turned its attention to the remaining FY 2009 appropriations. Under the omnibus appropriations bill released in late February, AHRQ would receive $372 million and NCHS would receive $124.7 million for FY 2009; budget increases of $38 million and $11 million, respectively. These agencies are operating under a continuing resolution that provides flat funding at FY 2008 levels. The continuing resolution expires March 6.
The president's FY 2010 budget, because of the transition, was not printed on the first Monday in February as required. Office of Management and Budget released the President's outline of FY 2010 budget February 26, which passed the House (HR 1105) 245-178. The Senate is not expected to act until early March. The topline summary of the budget is available at: gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/pdf/fy10-newera.pdf.
The budget summary, titled "A New Era in Responsibility," emphasizes the need for continued investment in comparative effectiveness research:
"Building on the unprecedented $1.1billion included in the recovery Act for comparative effectiveness research, the Administration will continue efforts to produce state-of-the-science information on what medical treatments work best for a given condition. When coupled with electronic health records, these findings can form the basis for clinical decision support tools-distilling all available evidence on the outcomes of different treatment options into user-friendly pop-up alerts for physicians at the point of care. These findings can thereby enhance medical decision-making by patients and their physicians."
In the FY 2010 budget, AHRQ would receive $50 million for CER and $13 million for investigator initiated research. The detailed budget request will be presented later this spring.
The FY 2010 budget summary and the FY 2009 appropriations bill and its explanation are posted online:
|
