July 31, 2009
House, Senate Provide Increased Funding for HSR and Data
The FY 2010 appropriations process is underway in Congress, with health services research and health data seeing moderate gains (see funding chart). House and Senate Committees on Appropriations have each provided $83 million for the Veteran's Health Administration's health services research-up from $75 million in FY 2009.
The House and Senate Committees on Appropriations each provide flat funding for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in FY 2010 due largely to the $300 million AHRQ received for comparative effectiveness research through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act earlier this year. Within the proposed $372 million budget, the Committee gives clear direction on how it wishes AHRQ to obligate funding based on the Coalition's recommendations-making greater investments in investigator initiated research, training grants, research on health care financing, organization, and delivery, and research dissemination and translation. The Senate goes so far as to earmark over $23.6 million for investigator initiated research, noting that "new and original research on [topics other than comparative effectiveness research, patient safety, and hospital acquired infections], such as health disparities, health care financing and organization, as well as access and coverage, could yield important contributions to health care reform."
Under the House and Senate bills, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) would receive a $14 million increase in FY 2010, bringing the agency's total budget to nearly $139 million. Based on the Coalition's recommendations, the Committee on Appropriations urges NCHS to use this funding to avoid further cuts to seminal surveys such as the National Health Interview Survey and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The House urges NCHS to avoid proposed cuts to vital statistics that provide critical public health data on American births and deaths; the Senate urges NCHS to submit a report to congress on "the optimal design of a national vital statistics system and the steps needed to achieve that design."
Congress hopes to clear all 12 appropriations bills under "regular order" before the September 30 close of the fiscal year. Nevertheless, it now seems more likely that the Congress will enact a continuing resolution to sustain federal funding at FY 2009 levels through the end of the calendar year while Congress uses floor time to debate health care reform legislation.
Copies of the appropriations bills and reports are provided below:
Labor, HHS, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Act
Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act
Questions? Please contact us at coalition@academyhealth.org.
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