The White House on Friday released President Biden’s tentative budget proposal for fiscal year 2022, which includes a proposal to create a new agency focused on developing cures for Alzheimer’s, cancer, diabetes and other diseases.
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The White House is expected to release a full budget proposal in late spring.
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Biden’s budget proposal has no legal effect as it is the ultimate responsibility of Congress to draft and approve federal spending measures that must then be signed by the president to become law. Nevertheless, the budget proposal highlights the funding priorities of the federal administration. Below is a breakdown of the administration’s health priorities for fiscal 2020.
Details of the budget proposal for fiscal year 2022
The budget proposal calls for an increase HHSBudget increased 23.5% from FY 2022, bringing the department’s 2020 budget to a total of $ 131.7 billion. That $ 131.7 billion figure would include:
- $ 51 billion for NIH Support research to improve health and reduce disease and disability;
- $ 8.7 billion for CDC Modernize public health data collection, train new public health experts, and improve core public health capacities at the federal and state levels;
- $ 1.6 billion for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration Support of the Community Mental Health Services Block Grant
- $ 905 million for FDA and the Assistant Secretary’s Office for Preparedness and Response invest in the FDA’s capacity and purchase supplies to maintain strategic national stockpiling and improvements initiated during the coronavirus epidemic; and
- $ 47.9 million for HHS Office for Citizens’ Rights.
As part of a $ 51 billion request to the NIH, the budget proposal provides for the creation of a $ 6.5 billion medical research agency within the NIH, dedicated to the rapid development of cures for Alzheimer’s, cancer, and diabetes and other diseases focused.
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The new agency, known as the Advanced Health Research Agency (ARPA-H), would be modeled on two existing research agencies: the Ministry of Defense‘s Agency for advanced defense research projects and the Energy authority‘s Agency for advanced research projects. If set up, the new agency would become one of the largest institutions of the NIH – with a higher budget than that of the NIH National Cancer InstituteSTAT News reports, currently NIH’s largest agency.
According to STAT News, it remains unclear how the new agency would work. White House staff revealed few details about the new agency during a briefing, and the budget documents contain no additional information beyond the funding and research objectives proposed by the agency.
As part of the budget for NIH, CDC, and other agencies within HHS, the budget also includes:
- $ 10.7 billion to fight the opioid epidemic in America by investing in research, prevention, treatment and recovery services – especially for Indians, older Americans and rural populations;
- $ 340 million to expand access to family planning health services;
- $ 551 million for home and community services;
- US $ 670 million to end the HIV / AIDS epidemic by improving access to prevention and treatment, including pre-exposure prophylaxis;
- $ 200 million to reduce maternal mortality by investing in rural programs and experts in implicit bias training and child development in high Medicaid / CHIP communities; and
- $ 100 million to fight gun violence.
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In addition, the budget calls for the promotion of balanced health care and support for research to understand the health effects of climate change, although the budget does not indicate funding amounts for these efforts.
reaction
Republican lawmakers criticized the budget proposal. In a statement Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) And other Republican leaders said Biden’s budget proposal had “prioritized trillions of spending on liberal priorities” and neglected funding for the military.
However, Biden said he was confident that Republicans will ultimately support his budget proposal. “I have already spoken to some of my Republican colleagues about how to deal with the local infrastructure legislation and other budget items,” Biden said in the White House on Friday. “So we’ll work on whether we can get cross-party support on a broad front here.”
According to STAT News, at least some of the questions set out in Biden’s preliminary budget proposal should be moving forward. For example, Senate Health Committee Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., And Senator Richard Burr (RN.C.), Murray’s Republican counterpart, are expected to work on pandemic preparedness laws this year (Facher, STAT News, 4/9; Cohrs, STAT News, 4/9; Hellmann, Modern Healthcare, 4/9; Lucia, Route Fifty, 4/9; King, FierceHealthcare, 4/9).
