Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Cancer, Alzheimer's And The Other Areas Of Medical Research That Won Big In Spending Bill
The Washington Post: Five Big Wins: Congress Boosts Medical Science Funding In Key Areas
Congress unveiled a bipartisan budget late Sunday that contains a number of welcome surprises for researchers who had been panicking since March, when President Trump proposed deep funding cuts for science and health. Under the deal, the National Institutes of Health will get a $2 billion boost in fiscal year 2017, as it did the previous year. ... Here are some of the big research winners. (Cha, 5/1)
The Washington Post: Science Funding Spared Under Congressional Budget Deal, But More Battles Ahead
The lights will stay on in the federal government, and also in the countless laboratories and universities that depend on federal funding for scientific and medical research. That's one upshot of the bipartisan budget deal congressional negotiators reached late Sunday. The bill, clocking in at more than 1,600 pages, is likely to pass both houses of Congress and be signed into law by President Trump this week. It covers funding through September. (Achenbach, Guarino, Kaplan and Fears, 5/1)
In other spending news —
CQ Roll Call: Labor-HHS-Education: Bill Boosts HHS, Year-Round Pell Grants
The Health and Human Services Department would receive $2.8 billion more in fiscal 2017 than in the previous budget year, led by a $2 billion boost for the National Institutes of Health, under the draft spending bill released early Monday. Despite the increases for HHS, the overall Labor-HHS-Education portion of the bill includes $161 billion in discretionary funding, a reduction of $934 million from the fiscal year 2016 enacted level, according to the House Appropriations Committee. The higher NIH funding reflects one point of strong bipartisan agreement in the bill. The increase would bring the agency's total to $34 billion for the 2017 fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. (Young and Wilkins, 5/1)
Columbus Dispatch: Coal Miners Getting Health-Care Coverage Under Federal Spending Bill
Ohio Sens. Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman say a new federal spending bill will guarantee permanent health-care benefits for 22,000 retired coal miners and their dependents who were on the verge of losing their coverage by the end of the week. Although lawmakers still have to approve a solution to salvage the coal miners’ threatened pensions, the announcement Monday effectively means they will have the health benefits for life. (Torry, 5/1)
