The $787 billion economic stimulus bill approved by Congress will, for the first time, provide substantial amounts of money for the NIH and for related Health Concerns which were highlighted in the stimulus package summary previously presented.
Included in this Omnibus package is the FY 2009 Labor-HHS-Educations Appropriations bill. Currently, most Federal health and education programs are funded at their FY 2008 levels by a continuing resolution (CR) that will expire on March 6. Recognizing that the CR is set to expire, it is likely that appropriators will work to advance this legislation in the near future. Below are the preliminary details on the funding within this package.
The National Institutes of Health would be funded at $30.3 billion, a $938 million funding increase over FY 2008. If Congress doles out the FY 2009 appropriations dollars in a manner proportional to the NIH budget (standard procedure), NLM would receive about $10 million. This would bring its FY 2009 budget up to about $340 million total.
Dr. Raynard Kington, the Acting Director of the National Institutes of Health held a briefing regarding how the NIH intends to use the $10.4 billion. He stressed two points repeatedly during his briefing. 1) Thank you health advocates! 2) This infusion of funds must demonstrate both short and long-term positive impacts on the economy. Any funds that are provided through grants or other mechanism will be very closely tracked for appropriate usage and their affect on areas like job creation.
He also pointed out that these funds will only be available for two years, so NIH will only be funding projects which can demonstrate significant gains in that time period. He also made the point that these funds will be forward-looking and not necessarily used to fill in the areas of the NIH budget which have received cuts. However, each Institute and Center Director will be evaluating their programs and deciding on the best candidates for a two year infusion of funds, and these may be programs which had received funding cuts in the past.
Dr. Kington specifically identified the following three areas as candidates to receive the bulk of the NIH supplemental funding (no details or dollar amounts were provided):
1. Meritorious R01s that have been highly scored, but not yet funded, will be reviewed, and those research projects which could be advanced within a two year time frame will be given preferential consideration for funding. He went on to state that given the uniqueness of the situation, research projects will not be selected formulaically.
2. Some existing grants will be supplemented through competitive or administrative mechanisms.
3. NIH will initiate a Challenge Grant program to fund cross-cutting research projects that can be completed within two years. A new RFA will be issued in the near future and the peer-review process will be completed in an abridged manner considering the time constraints.
Health Aid to States
One of the areas of the stimulus package is $87.1 billion for Health Aid to States with Medicaid costs. This increases the federal government’s contribution for Medicaid costs to help states close their budget gaps. Pennsylvanians may want to review Governor Rendell’s proposed PA Budget for 2009 (9MB pdf). See pages A3:27-31 (starts on page 92 of the pdf) for the health care overview.
Report based on Medical Library Association Information Issues and Policy Committee.
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