AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) President and CEO Darrell G. Kirch, MD, issued the following statement regarding House passage of the conference agreement on the fiscal year 2019 appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS):
“We are delighted that – for the first time in two decades — the Labor-HHS bill has passed both houses of Congress prior to the end of the previous fiscal year. We applaud appropriators for crafting this bipartisan bill that will increase funding for groundbreaking medical research, leading to cures and treatments delivered by the health care workforce that this bill also supports.
Specifically, the AAMC thanks House Appropriations Committee Chair Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) and Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-N.Y), as well as Subcommittee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) for their leadership and long-standing support of agencies across the health care continuum, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
An increase in funding for the NIH will support research at medical schools and teaching hospitals across the nation, bringing us ever closer to tomorrow’s cures. Additionally, funding for the Health Resources and Services Administration’s workforce and pipeline programs will help create a strong and culturally competent health care workforce to provide those cures and treatments to vulnerable patients and those living in underserved communities.
We urge the President to sign this bill before October 1 and finalize the support for these programs that are vital to our patients and our nation’s health security.”
The Association of American Medical Colleges is a not-for-profit association dedicated to transforming health care through innovative medical education, cutting-edge patient care, and groundbreaking medical research. Its members are all 154 accredited U.S. and 17 accredited Canadian medical schools; nearly 400 major teaching hospitals and health systems, including 51 Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers; and more than 80 academic societies. Through these institutions and organizations, the AAMC serves the leaders of America’s medical schools and teaching hospitals and their more than 173,000 full-time faculty members, 89,000 medical students, 129,000 resident physicians, and more than 60,000 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the biomedical sciences.