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Senate Panel Approves Deep Cuts to
Public Health, ACA
Last week we reported that a House appropriations panel offset a $1.1 billion increase in funding for the National Institutes of Health by abolishing the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and blocking any funding for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and family planning grants.
On June 26, the panel's Senate counterpart took a similarly disturbing path. The Senate appropriations committee voted 16-14 to approve the Labor-HHS-Education spending bill, cutting $4 billion below current spending levels and $14.5 billion less than the president's request.
The only bright spot: The Senate panel boosted NIH by $2 billion, the agency's biggest year-to-year increase since 2003. But the added funding came at the expense of important health and education programs.
On the same day that the Supreme Court ruled broadly in favor of the current implementation of ACA, the Senate panel voted to block CMS from using any federal funds to support the operational costs of state-based exchanges.
Elsewhere, the Senate panel cut AHRQ's appropriated funds by 35 percent, down to $236 million, and reduced health professions and nurse training programs by 7 percent, including a cut in primary care training and termination of the health careers opportunity program (HCOP). Finally, the legislation would rescind $300 million already appropriated for Pell grants.
This legislation as well as its House counterpart reflects a set of misaligned priorities, caused in large part by unrealistic spending caps on social programs.
Your Help is Needed!
SGIM will soon be sending out an advocacy alert asking you to contact your Members of Congress to urge them to fix this legislation. Your response will add to a community-wide effort to get our national priorities straight. Thanks in advance for your support and for your efforts.
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