Budget

The Senate health committee on Tuesday (Feb. 9) will hold the first installment of a long-awaited markup of its counterpart to the House-passed Cures legislation, with the committee's lineup including a revised draft of legislation to improve electronic health records, as well as bipartisan bills to streamline FDA's reviews of innovate medical devices, bolster FDA's oversight of reused devices, accelerate the approval process of genetically targeted drugs, identify and remove barriers faced by the next generation of researchers within the National Institutes of Health, among other issues.

A group of eight senators, including Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (VT), is asking President Barack Obama to include provisions to lower prescription drug costs in his upcoming fiscal 2017 budget, and point to Medicare drug price negotiations as one policy solution that could help bring down those costs.

The White House Press Secretary, speaking at the daily press briefing on Monday (Feb. 1), reiterated the commitment by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to break down barriers that block data sharing among researchers as part of the administration's “Moonshot” initiative to cure cancer.

Vice President Joe Biden spoke with Republican lawmakers about increasing funds for the National Institutes of Health and getting bipartisan NIH and FDA reforms through the Senate and into law the same day President Barack Obama unveiled a new White House mission to cure cancer in his last State of the Union Address.

The chairman of the Senate health committee is hopeful the upper chamber's counterpart to the House-passed 21st Century Cures bill will be the next agenda item for the committee.

Medical imaging stakeholders Thursday praised Congress for including in the massive spending bill language to block implementation of United States Preventive Service Task Force's (USPSTF) recommended grades for breast cancer screenings.

Opponents of the Affordable Care Act’s major taxes scored a big win this week as measures to delay the “Cadillac,” medical device and health insurance taxes were tucked into the omnibus spending bill and tax extenders package introduced early Wednesday (Dec. 16).

The spending bill released by House lawmakers early Wednesday (Dec. 16) morning extends FDA's Rare Pediatric Disease Priority Review program to Sept. 30, 2016.

A bill giving CMS the ability to grant a blanket hardship exemption from the so-called meaningful use of electronic health records program in 2015 didn't make it into the omnibus spending bill negotiated late Tuesday (Dec. 15), but the American Medical Association is still optimistic the bill could pass before Congress leaves for the year.