Late yesterday, the White House issued a Statement of Administrative Policy (SAP) in support of the 21st Century Cures legislation, which is on the House Floor today.
The SAP expressly calls out the Innovation Fund in the measure, which targets funding for several of the Administration’s health care priorities, as a highlight of the measure.
Senate Appropriations Labor-HHS subcommittee Chairman Roy Blunt (R-MO) has said today that the CR will not include the $2b bump to NIH that was included in the Senate bill. The CR, in whatever duration, should contain level funding of $32.084b or FY 2016 levels. There has been a research and health community effort to increase funding for NIH as an anomaly to the CR, but Blunt said today that it will not happen.
While this does not mean that an ultimate increase to NIH will not happen in a final FY 2017 package, it will not happen in the stopgap spending measure.
Additionally, there is now tension between the House and Senate as to when to end the CR. House is looking towards a March ending and the Senate wants a May date.
Senate Republicans are now pushing for the Fy 2017 stop-gap continuing resolution to go through May 2017. The House, particularly House conservatives, have long advocated for a March 2017 date. The White House continues to push for a CR that is as short as possible to ensure the Pentagon gets the budget assurance it needs for ongoing conflicts.
Additionally, the White House sent an $11.6 b request for additional funding to combat ISIL at the beginning of November.
The text of the CR is not expected to be unveiled until next week as House and Senate leadership continue to work though these issues.
President-elect Trump is expected to name Elaine Chao as his pick for Secretary of Transportation. Cho was Secretary of Labor in the President George W. Bush Administration, and Deputy Secretary of Transportation in the President George H.W. Bush Administration. Chao is the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Early today, President-elect Trump announced he has selected Congressman Tom Price (R-GA) as his nominee for Secretary of HHS and Seema Verma as Administrator of CMS.
Rep Tom Price (R-GA)
Price is the current House Budget Committee Chairman. An orthopedic surgeon by trade and a staunch conservative, Price has been a vocal and active opponent of the ACA since its inception. He began his rise through House leadership starting as Chairman for the influential, conservative House Republican Study Committee. He is a six term Congressman and was a state legislator for nine years. Also, he was a Trump healthcare surrogate during the campaign.
Since 2009, Price has championed his own legislation, H.R. 2300 the Empowering Patients First Act, to repeal the ACA. In its latest iteration, the proposal includes refundable, age-adjusted tax credits for individuals to buy insurance if they don’t have access to coverage through an employer or government program. Individuals in a government program, such as Medicare, Medicaid, or Tricare, would also be allowed to opt out of that coverage and receive tax credits toward the cost of private coverage instead.
Price attended University of Michigan for undergrad and medical school, his residency was at Emory, and he was medical director of the orthopedic clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
Seema Verma
Verma is the founder and CEO of SVC, Inc., a health policy consulting firm. Verma has strong ties to Vice President-elect Pence as she lead the health overhaul for the state of Indiana. She also was the architect of the Healthy Indiana Plan, the state’s 2015 Medicaid expansion waiver. She was active in crafting the Republican Governors Association’s Public Policy Committee Report, A New Medicaid: A Flexible, Innovation and Accountable Future, which established seven principles for Medicaid.
She has a Master’s degree in Public Health with concentration in health policy and management from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor’s degree in Life Sciences from the University of Maryland.