The President’s preliminary proposed FY 2018 HHS www.hhs.gov budget released March 16th, requests $69 billion for HHS, which is a $15.1 billion or 17.9 percent decrease from the FY 2017 budget. The proposed budget does however include additional funds to implement the 21st Century CURES Act.
NIH www.nih.gov funding would be reduced by $6 million from and would produce a major reorganization of NIH’s Institutes and Centers. The plans are to eliminate the Fogarty International Center and consolidate the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) www.ahrq.gov into NIH, plus make other structural changes across NIH organizations.
The Budget would strengthen the sustainability of Medicare and Medicaid by investing in ways to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse. Additional funding for the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control (HCFAC) program would enable CMS to shift away from a “pay-and-chase” model to be able to identify and prevent fraudulent or improper payments from being paid. The budget would also continue to support efficient operations not only for Medicare, Medicaid, but also for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
The Budget would eliminate $403 million in health professions and nursing training programs but HHS would continue to fund health workforce activities that provide scholarships and loan repayments in exchange for services in the U.S where there is a shortage of health professionals.
In addition, the proposed budget would reform key public health, emergency preparedness, and prevention programs. The Budget would restructure similar HHS preparedness grants to reduce overlapping administrative costs and would direct resources to states with the greatest need.
The Budget would also create a new Federal Emergency Response Fund so that CDC www.cdc.gov could more quickly respond to public health outbreaks such as Zika and other diseases. The Budget also would assist CDC with a new $500 million block grant to increase CDC’s focus on public health challenges specific to each state.
The HHS Budget would invest in mental health activities to be awarded to high performing entities that focus on high priority areas, such as suicide prevention, serious mental illness, and children’s mental health.
To help focus on substance abuse treatment activities, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) www.samhsa.gov Budget would include a $500 million increase above 2016 enacted levels to expand opioid misuse prevention efforts and to increase access to treatment and recovery services.
The Budget recalibrates FDA’s www.fda.gov medical product user fees to over $2 billion in 2018. This is about $1 billion over the 2017 annualized CR levels and replaces the need for new budget authority to cover pre-market review costs.
To complement the increase in medical product user fees, the Budget includes a package of administrative actions designed to achieve regulatory efficiency and speed up the development of safe and effective medical products.