Senate Appropriations Committee Approves FY18 HHS Funding Bill

September 2017 ~

The Senate’s Appropriations Committee has approved its fiscal 2018 bill for Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) funding.

FY2018 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) Appropriations Bill passed 29-2 and contains $164.1 billion in base discretionary funding for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies.

The bill includes $79.4 billion in discretionary funding for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a $1.7 billion increase above FY2017, not including cap adjustments.

The bill provides a $36.1 billion for National Institutes of Health (NIH), as well as allocates monies for research on Alzheimer’s disease, the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative^®, and the Precision Medicine Initiative’s (PMI’s) All of Us Research Program.

Additionally, under the bill, the Independent Payment Advisory Board, established in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), is defunded and includes a $1.9 billion in cap adjustment funding for preventing waste, fraud, abuse, and improper payments in the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs.

See a summary of the bill here or view the bill in full text here.

Source(s): FY2018 Labor HHS Education Appropriations Bill, S771; FY2018 Labor HHS Education Appropriations Bill, Report 115-150; Modern Healthcare; Committee on Appropriations;