Coalition for Health Services Research

On June 13, the House Appropriations Committee passed the Labor/HHS/Education bill, providing $141.9 billion in discretionary funding to these agencies; only 0.6 percent more than current spending, but $4.1 billion more than requested. This additional funding was offset by cuts to the Defense allocation.

The bill is expected to go to the House floor for vote next week.

As expected, agencies that support health services research are provided flat funding across the board:

- AHRQ would receive flat funding of nearly $319 million, including $84 million for patient safety work (which includes $50 million for HIT) and $15 million for comparative effectiveness research. The Coalition requested $440 million for the agency, $100 million for patient safety, $60 million for comparative effectiveness research, and $60 million for HIT.

- CDC would receive a total of $6.2 billion, of which $31 million is provided for public health research, consistent with the Coalition's recommendation. The National Center for Health Statistics would be virtually flat funded at $109.4 million. While this is $400,000 more than FY 2006 funding, these funds are targeted for a feasibility project on linking the state-based food assistance program records to the NHANES database . The Coalition recommended $139 million for NCHS.

- NIH would receive nearly $28.3 billion. Assuming the proportion of funds invested in health services research remains consistent at 3.2 1 percent of total funding, we can expect funding for HSR to remain flat at $90 8 million. The Coalition recommended $961 million.

- CMS would receive $46.8 million in discretionary funding for research, demonstrations, and evaluations. The Coalition recommended $88 million. The report language does not provide any guidance to CMS on how to spend these funds, however, we do expect that future reports will include targeted funding for projects that may ultimately cut funds for the agency's discretionary R&D. For example, last year CMS was appropriated $12 million more than requested for research, but the report language directed that CMS spend $25 million on a new Real Choice grants program to states (which CMS had not planned to conduct) and a million for a pet project in Hawaii . The net effect was a $14 million cut from the agency's planned R&D agenda.

The House passed and referred to the Senate an appropriations bill for military and veterans' affairs. Funding for the Veteran's Health Administration's research function is $412 million. The Coalition requested $460.

For a copy of the committee report, detailing Title II funding for HHS, click here.

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