Washington Highlights: January 26,
2007
Contents
Prior Issues
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House to Vote on Year-Long CR
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) announced Jan. 24 that
the House will take up legislation to complete the FY 2007 appropriations
bills on Jan. 31. Hoyer said that negotiations are under way with
Senate leaders of both parties to reach agreement on a funding package
for the remainder of the FY 2007, using the FY 2006 spending level
as a baseline.
The Senate could take up the package the week of Feb. 5. Senate
action on the package could be lengthy, depending on whether amendments
are offered to the measure. Hoyer stated that if the leaders of
both parties can agree to the package, it likely would not be open
to amendments on the House floor.
Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chair of the Senate Labor-HHS-Education
Appropriations Subcommittee, told reporters on Wednesday that he
is confident that his subcommittee's allocation will "be on
track with the Senate's fiscal 2007 level." Harkin said the
additional funds would be used for programs such as Pell grants,
NIH, and community health centers.
AAMC President Darrell G. Kirch, M.D., Jan. 22 sent a letter
to the House and Senate leadership urging them to provide additional
funds for the NIH for FY 2007. The letter states, "Increasing
the budget of the NIH in FY 2007 would achieve the intent expressed
by both the House of Representatives and the Senate when they considered
their respective FY 2007 budget resolutions, as well as the goal
set forth in the National Institutes of Health Reform Act of 2006,
which the President signed on January 15 [Public
Law 109-482]. The research supported and conducted by NIH has
had a profound and far-reaching impact on society in many important
ways: safeguarding and improving the lives of all our citizens,
serving as a catalyst for new products and technologies, creating
skilled jobs, and contributing to the nation's economic growth.
However, if the NIH budget is maintained at the FY 2006 level, the
agency will have lost more than 9 percent of its purchasing power
(in inflation-adjusted dollars) in the last four years, threatening
further progress in all of these areas. Even worse, we face the
very real danger of eroding the vitally important scientific infrastructure
we all have worked so hard to build."
Only two FY 2007 appropriations bills have been enacted - defense
and homeland security. Programs under the remaining nine bills are
currently being funded through a continuing resolution (CR) through
Feb. 15 [PL
109-383].
Information:
Dave Moore, Senior Director
AAMC Government Relations
dbmoore@aamc.org
(202) 828-0525
AAMC Responds to President's Health Care
Coverage Plan
AAMC President Darrell G. Kirch, M.D., Jan. 26 issued a response
to the health care proposals outlined in the President's State of
the Union Address, delivered on Jan. 23. President Bush proposed
a new initiative to "help States pay private health insurance
premiums for the poor and the hard to insure." He would fund
this initiative "without creating a new Federal entitlement
or new Federal spending." Instead, "a complex mix of [health
care provider] subsidies and payments" would be directed to
states that provide access to "basic, affordable private health
insurance."
In the AAMC response, Dr. Kirch stated his opposition to the plan
to "redirect federal funds from providers that sustain the
health care safety net." Explaining that major teaching hospitals
provide nearly 50 percent of the nation's hospital-based charity
care, Dr. Kirch warns that if "these institutions lose federal
support, it will stretch the already taut health care safety net
to the breaking point.
Specific details about the President's plan will be included in
the administration's FY 2008 proposed budget, to be released Feb.
5.
Information:
Christiane Mitchell, Senior Legislative Analyst
AAMC Government Relations
cmitchell@aamc.org
(202) 828-0526
NIH Names Director for New Strategic Office
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Elias A. Zerhouni,
M.D., announced Jan. 25 that Alan M. Krensky, M.D., has been selected
as the first NIH Deputy Director for the Office of Portfolio Analysis
and Strategic Initiatives (OPASI).
Dr. Krensky, who will assume his position on July 8, comes to NIH
from Stanford University School of Medicine, where he served as
professor of pediatrics, Chief of the Division of Immunology and
Transplantation Biology, Associate Chair for Research in the Department
of Pediatrics, and Associate Dean for Children's Health. He is a
graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. Dr. Krensky's
research interests in pediatrics include human cellular and molecular
immunology, transplantation immunology, and tumor immunology. He
is a co-author of more than 240 research papers.
The office has been described as "institutionalizing"
the NIH Roadmap, which is the research blueprint for cross-disciplinary,
trans-NIH initiatives. OPASI will identify important areas of emerging
scientific opportunities or rising public health challenges, and
help accelerate investments in these areas to make sure new ideas
have a chance to develop.
According to NIH, the baseline for initial funding for OPASI's
research projects derives from the Roadmap, about 1.1 percent of
the NIH budget in 2006. The "common fund" is expected
to grow to 1.7 percent in 2008, and is targeted eventually to grow
to 5 percent of the NIH budget. Authorization legislation enacted
on Jan. 15 calls for review of the common fund when it reaches this
level [see Washington Highlights,
Jan. 19].
Information:
Stephen Heinig, Lead Science Policy Analyst
AAMC Biomedical Health Sciences Research
sheinig@aamc.org
(202) 828-0488
Clinical Research Informatics Discussed at NCRR
Council
The Advisory Council to the National Institutes of Health National
Center for Research Resources (NCRR) dedicated most of its Jan.
18 meeting
to a review of recent developments in clinical informatics. Presenters
included Clem McDonald, M.D., Director of the National Center for
Biomedical Communications at the National Library of Medicine; Chris
Chute M.D., DrPH, of the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine; and Zak
Kohane, M.D., Ph.D., of the Harvard Medical School and Children's
Hospital. They gave an overview of activities dependent on development
of common standards and codes.
The council's comments noted the potential role of the Clinical
and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs) in promoting adoption of
common systems, standards, and procedures. The first round of CTSA
awards and planning grants were announced in October, with a meeting
of principal investigators on Oct. 23. The deadline for the second
round of CTSA applications was Jan. 17.
On animal resources, Franziska Grieder D.V.M., Ph.D., of NCRR;
Kent Lloyd, D.V.M., Ph.D., of the University of California-Davis;
and Muriel Davisson, Ph.D., of Jackson Laboratory reported on the
establishment of the Knockout Mouse Project (KOMP), which is designed
to generate a comprehensive resource of null mutant alleles for
each mouse gene.
Information:
Stephen Heinig, Lead Science Policy Analyst
AAMC Biomedical Health Sciences Research
sheinig@aamc.org
(202) 828-0488
AHRQ Releases Annual Quality, Disparities
Reports
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has released
its 2006 National Healthcare Quality Report
and the 2006 National Healthcare Disparities Report,
which together track trends across a broad array of measures of
health care quality and access for many racial and ethnic minority
groups and socioeconomic groups. The quality report addresses the
current state of health care quality as a whole, while the disparities
report focuses on the variations in quality and access across different
populations.
The quality report notes that the greatest quality improvements
occurred in hospitals, particularly related to improved treatment
for heart attack and pneumonia patients, as reported through Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services quality improvement organizations.
However, the report states that the pace of change among the 40
core quality measures identified by AHRQ is slow overall, and there
is a high degree of variation among states.
The disparities report finds that disparities remain prevalent,
with blacks receiving poorer care than whites for 73 percent of
22 core measures selected by AHRQ, while Hispanics received poorer
care for 77 percent of the measures. Also, low income people received
lower quality care than people of high income for 71 percent of
the measures. Access to health care also continues to be a problem
for racial and ethnic minorities and low-income populations.
Information:
Erica Froyd, Director, Public Health and Research Legislative Affairs
AAMC Government Relations
efroyd@aamc.org
(202) 828-0525
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