Statement by Research!America President and CEO Mary Woolley on Labor-Health and Human Services-Education Appropriations Legislation
Research!America is profoundly grateful to Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Roy Blunt (R-MO), Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA), and the Subcommittee members for providing a $3 billion increase for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in their FY20 appropriations measure. Champions like Senators Blunt and Murray have consistently demonstrated their deep commitment to the crucial research NIH conducts and supports, laying the groundwork for urgently needed medical progress. Their leadership, and that of House “Labor-H” Subcommittee Leaders Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Ranking Member Tom Cole (R-OK), is ensuring that life-saving medical progress is treated with the priority merited by its positive impact on the health, security, and wellbeing of the American people and populations across the globe.
Unfortunately, other federal agencies that play a pivotal role in advancing these same crucial objectives, including the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), received insufficient funding to meet their crucial missions. CDC is playing a vital role as we speak in stopping threats like the opioid crisis, Ebola, and e-cigarettes related lung infections that are the tip of the iceberg in the agency’s 24/7 defense of every American. AHRQ is the bridge between medical progress and high-value health care – underinvestment undercuts the objective of delivering high-quality care effectively and efficiently. We urge the House and Senate to work on a bipartisan basis to meet the objective of increasing the NIH budget by $3 billion and to also significantly strengthen the budgets of CDC and AHRQ.