Senate Budget Committee Passes Fiscal Year 2009 Budget Resolution

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 10 Mar 2008 - 5:00 PDT

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The Senate Budget Committee on Thursday voted 12-10 along party lines to pass a $3 trillion fiscal year 2009 budget resolution that would provide more in spending for health care for children and veterans and other domestic programs than President Bush has requested, CongressDaily reports (Hess, CongressDaily, 3/7). The budget resolution includes $18 billion more in spending for domestic programs than Bush has requested (Clarke/Higa, CQ Today, 3/6). Before approval of the budget resolution, the committee passed several amendments, two of which would reserve funds for pediatric dental care and promote health care information technology (Kivlan/Leonatti, CongressDaily, 3/6).

The House Budget Committee earlier on Thursday voted 22-16 to pass a FY 2009 budget resolution that includes $22 billion more in spending for domestic programs than Bush has requested (CQ Today, 3/6). Earlier this week, Bush threatened to veto any FY 2009 appropriations bill that exceeds his request for spending and does not reduce the number of FY 2008 earmarks by half (CongressDaily, 3/7). The full House and Senate will consider the budget resolutions next week (CQ Today, 3/6).

Nussle Calls for Medicare, Medicaid Changes
In related news, White House Office of Management and Budget Director Jim Nussle on Thursday said that government health programs like Medicare will become insolvent in 35 years without changes to reduce spending growth, CongressDaily reports. During a House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee hearing, he defended a proposal in the FY 2009 budget request released by Bush in February that would reduce Medicare spending by $178 billion over five years through decreased reimbursements for health care providers and increased premiums and copayments for beneficiaries. Nussle said, "If we don't address it in bite-sized pieces, it will come up and bite us."

According to CongressDaily, subcommittee members "took Nussle to task over his pre-emptive threat that ... Bush will veto the Democrats' spending and tax proposals if they do not adhere to his budget, as well as the administration's opposition to congressional earmarks." Subcommittee Chair Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) said, "How can you offer up veto threats if you haven't even seen (our) plan?" adding, "Isn't that declaring some kind of war before you see the budget?" (Povich, CongressDaily, 3/6).

NIH Budget Concerns
A lack of additional funds for NIH in the FY 2009 budget could limit progress on cancer research, Allen Lichter, CEO of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and Ellen Stovall, CEO of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, said during a joint press briefing on Thursday, CQ HealthBeat reports. The NIH budget -- which almost doubled between FY 1998 and FY 2003 -- has either remained flat or decreased in subsequent fiscal years. In his FY 2009 budget request, Bush seeks $29.5 billion for NIH, which received the same amount of funds in FY 2008.

Lichter said, "We have said that as this research gets frozen, we will start to see a decrease of enrollment (in clinical trials), so last year we saw it: about 3,000 fewer patients." He added, "This is the seed corn of tomorrow's clinical trials, and they are going away." ASCO has asked Congress to increase the NIH budget by 6.6% for FY 2009, according to Lichter (Cooley, CQ HealthBeat, 3/6).

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