The House approved its FY 2007 budget resolution (H.Con.Res. 376) on May 18th.  Moderate Republicans, led by Mike Castle, agreed to support the budget resolution when House leadership agreed in a non-binding resolution to support additional funding for health and education.

The American Association of Medical Colleges says:

The moderates, led by Rep. Mike Castle (Del.), Nancy Johnson (Conn.), and Dave Reichert (Wash.), had offered a substitute budget to increase funding for the Labor-HHS-Education appropriation by $7.158 billion to bring the bill to its FY 2006 level plus a 2 percent inflationary increase. As a result of negotiations on that amendment, the moderates secured a partial victory earlier this month when the House Appropriations Committee agreed to transfer over $6 billion from the defense and foreign operations accounts to domestic programs, including increasing the allocation for the Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee by $4.1 billion above the President’s budget.
 
The budget resolution was amended to create a $3.1 billion reserve fund for health, education, and other domestic priorities, but only if these funds are offset by savings from other discretionary or mandatory programs. Under an amendment by Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), at least $1 billion of the offset for any increases for the Labor-HHS-Education bill would come from unobligated funds for Iraq reconstruction. The moderates also received assurances from the leadership that the additional $3.1 billion would not come from Medicaid, Medicare or other programs to help special populations.

What does this mean for cancer research and prevention?

It’s too soon to tell how the final negotiations between the House, the Senate and the President will end.  However, in theory, this brings the funding available to health and education up to a level which will preclude the cuts envisioned in the President’s Budget.

Again, these are just the initial decisions on cancer research and prevention funding this year.  The fight to increase funding will continue throughout the spring and summer in both the House and Senate.  C3 will alert you when your actions will make the most difference, so be sure you have registered as a One Minute Advocate to get our action alerts!

Research in nuclear medicine has give cancer patients procedures such as PET scans and radiation therapy.  A source of funding for nuclear medicine research is the Department of Energy’s Medical Applications and Measurement Science Program.

This program provided resources to molecular/nuclear medicine professionals so that they could develop PET scanners to diagnose and monitor treatment in cancer. PET scans can offer significant advantages over CT and MRI scans in diagnosing disease and are sometimes more effective in identifying whether cancer is present or not, if it has spread, if it is responding to treatment, and if a person is cancer free after treatment.

The fiscal year (FY) 2006 Energy and Water Appropriations bill eliminated funding for nuclear medicine research at the Department of Energy (DOE). Consequently, the Federal government is providing no funding for nuclear medicine research in FY 2006, abandoning a fifty-year commitment to funding this vital research.

C3 has signed onto the Society of Nuclear Medicine letter (PDF) requesting that these critical research funds be restored. To learn more, see this fact sheet. (PDF)

 Funding for cancer research and prevention continues to be at risk. The President’s Budget proposed significant cuts to health and education efforts, including a $40 million cut at NCI. 

Thanks to pressure from advocates, the Senate agreed to restore $7 billion to the health and education budget through the Specter-Harkin Amendment.  This funding would restore many of the budget cuts and allow for inflation costs.

Representative Mike Castle has been working to convince the House to mirror the Senate action.   At this point, the House has agreed to restore $4.1 billion, which is just not enough.  Castle and his fellow moderates are seeking the additional funding. 

These are just the initial decisions on cancer research and prevention funding this year.  The fight to increase funding will continue throughout the spring and summer in both the House and Senate.  C3 will alert you when your actions will make the most difference, so stay tuned!

On May 11, Senate opponents of S.1955 were able to defeat efforts to have the bill considered on the Senate floor.  Details of how your Senator voted can be found here.  The "no" votes supported our position, and will be thanked for their support.

This means that S. 1955 is stalled, at least for now.   S. 1955 (Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization & Affordability Act) which attempts to lower insurer costs by preempting access to medical care guaranteed at the state level. See a summary of the action and comments from all sides of the debate here.

The logic behind S. 1955 is: "We need cheaper health care. Health care that’s not required to include things like colon cancer screening will cost less. Therefore, if we drop the requirements to provide coverage for things like colon cancer screening, health care will be cheaper."

My grandmother would have called this "penny wise, pound foolish." Yes, we save money in the short run.  If people over age 50 aren’t screened for colon cancer, their insurance will cost less. But what happens to people who GET colon cancer? Studies have shown that colon cancer screening is cost-effective–and most importantly, it saves lives.

C3 strongly opposed S. 1955 (PDF file) and we wish to thank all of you who responded to our action alert to support our position.

Colorectal cancer wasn’t the only screening threatened by S. 1955.  Opposition was led by a large coalition of health advocacy organizations, including the American Cancer Society (PDF file), AARP, the American Diabetes Association and the National Partnership for Women and Children. A group of 39 state attorneys general submitted a letter saying, "Insurers of individual, small group and large group policies could ignore [state] requirements in favor of the bare-bones plans, subjecting consumers to reduced care and ever-increasing out-of-pocket expenses."

Alternatives to S. 1955 are being proposed by Senator Olympia Snowe, and by Senators Durbin and Lincoln.

Past posts have discussed the impact of the 2006 funding cuts on cancer research and prevention. The President’s Budget proposal for 2007 would increase the cuts.

Members of Congress on the respective Appropriations Committees cannot adequately fund programs in FY 07 if they are not allocated the money necessary to administer these programs. As we saw last year, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees can only spend as much money as the overall Budget Resolution allocates.

 

…The Specter-Harkin and DeLauro amendments sought to restore funding for the health andeducation functions in the respective Senate and House Budget Resolutions to the levels provided just two years ago (Fiscal Year 2005). It is important that health and education advocates support the restoration of these critical funds this year, or the trend will only get worse as additional reductions are made with each passing year

On an inflation-adjusted basis, the current NIH appropriation is smaller than it was four years ago. In constant dollars, NIH funding has declined by more than $1 billion since 2003 …

 

Scientists across the country have seen delays in processing grant applications, elimination of cost-of-living allowances for multiyear grants and cuts in continuing grants previously awarded. For young researchers, there is the real danger that they may not receive any NIH funding. Some of our best and brightest young investigators … may leave the profession. What a loss that would be for American biomedical research.