The U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations has released its fiscal year (FY) 2023 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education funding bill.
The draft Labor-HHS bill would provide $47 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) base budget, a $2 billion(4.5%) increase over current funding, but $500 million less than the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations included in its Labor-HHS appropriations bill. The Senate bill also includes:
- $291 million funding boost for the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
- $1 billion (same level as in FY 2022 but less than the $2.75 billion proposed by the House) for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) “as a standalone agency within NIH” to help accelerate new innovations in treatments for cancer and other diseases.
- $438 million for the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB).
The bill includes a one-year extension, through Jan. 1, 2025, of the current delay in implementation of the 2009 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) mammography screening recommendations as they apply to Affordable Care Act coverage and any other laws that reference the recommendations.
The committee’s explanatory statement that accompanies the draft bill includes various relevant non-binding recommendations related to use of funds with respect to NCI’s Radiopharmaceutical Development Initiative, NIBIB’s Medical Imaging and Data Resource Center, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ bundled payment policy for radiopharmaceuticals in the hospital outpatient setting, payment rates for cardiac CT, remote and decentralized clinical trials, and more.
The House Labor-HHS spending bill still awaits consideration by the full House, and the timeline for Senate committee consideration of its draft bills is uncertain. Neither chamber is expected to move their FY 2023 spending bills forward until Congress returns from its August break in September. With funding for the current fiscal year set to expire Sept. 30, Congress will likely need to pass a continuing resolution (CR), a temporary government funding bill, as a stop-gap until work on appropriations bills is complete.
For more information, please contact Gloria Romanelli, JD, American College of Radiology® Senior Director, Legislative and Regulatory Relations.