Budget

The House Appropriations Labor, HHS spending bill would gut CMS funding for the health insurance exchanges, prohibit funding for the the Affordable Care Act “navigators” and bar the agency from collecting user fees from qualified health plans that the agency uses to fund the federally-facilitated marketplace (FFM).

The House Appropriations Committee advanced a fiscal 2018 FDA funding bill to the floor Wednesday (July 12) by voice vote, maintaining $2.8 billion in discretionary funding for the agency and adding $60 million to implement the 21st Century Cures Act.

Despite concerns voiced by lawmakers Wednesday (June 28) morning on a number of topics ranging from compounding to laboratory developed test regulations, House agriculture subcommittee appropriators voted unanimously to pass the fiscal 2018 FDA funding bill to the full committee.

HHS will be able to transfer funds to FDA's Oncology Center of Excellence thanks to language included in the House Appropriations Committee's fiscal 2018 agriculture appropriations bill released Tuesday (June 27).

The Trump administration is requesting $1.7 billion for activities related to the federally facilitated exchanges, including about $1.2 billion from user fees and $471 billion in discretionary funding -- or about $310 million less than 2017 levels, according to CMS' fiscal 2018 budget justification.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb took his first steps to more forcefully tackle the opioid epidemic by setting up an Opioid Policy Steering Committee comprising the agency's senior career leaders.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) on Tuesday (May 23) blasted Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump's fiscal 2018 budget proposal that appeared to come in addition to the per-capita caps proposal in the House-passed American Health Care Act.

President Donald Trump's fiscal 2018 budget proposal would cut FDA's human drug program by $307 million in discretionary budget authority, its medical device program by $182 million, its biologics program by $119 million and its food program by $70 million, resulting in cuts to the agency's workforce and programs even if Congress were to go along with Trump's request to double user fees.

The Trump administration pledged in its 2018 budget to offer more clarity on use of value-based payment and to foster the exchange of preapproval information between industry and payers, which two industry groups view as tracking with a drug pricing policy slate unveiled by a coalition of drug makers and payers last week.