President Obama’s Budget Proposal for Health Care Funding

UDPATE: The fiscal year 2010 budget passed both houses of Congress on April 29.

The health care reserve fund of over $630 billion over 10 years was kept in the final bill, making us one step closer to meaningful health reform this year! Final details will be posted later.

Learn more about the original budget proposal below. Also, take a look at the open letter we sent to Congress asking them to make health care a priority by keeping the health care reserve fund.


The budget proposal establishes a health care reserve fund of $634 billion over 10 years — a downpayment on health care reform. Funding would come from 3 sources — aligning incentives toward quality, promoting efficiency and accountability, and encouraging shared responsibility. The health care savings would be $316 billion, and increased tax revenue would be $318 billion over 10 years. In addition, the 2010 Budget for HHS is $76.8 billion, plus $22.4 billion from the 2009 Recovery Act. Highlights of the budget include:

HIGHER QUALITY HEALTH CARE
* Increases funding for comparative effectiveness research, in addition to $1.1 billion through the Recovery Act
* Provides funding to accelerate the adoption of Health Information Technology. Building on the $19 billion investment in the Recovery Act, provides incentive payments starting in 2011 for using a certified electronic health record (EHR) ,with a goal of universal EHRs by 2015. Also provides subsidies to physicians and hospitals to purchase and implement EHRs
* Allocates $1 billion for prevention and wellness interventions provided through the Recovery Act
* Invests $330 million to expand loan repayment to doctors, nurses, and dentists who work in underserved areas.
* Provides support for the FDA to buy drugs safely from other countries and to approve generic biologics; invests over $1 billion to increase and improve food inspections, surveillance, and response.
* Increases funding for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.

A STRONGER MEDICARE AND MEDICAID
* Strengthens program integrity with funding for oversight to decrease Medicare and Medicaid waste, fraud, and redundancy.
* Expands the Medicare and Medicaid research agenda. Creates demonstration and pilot projects to evaluate payment reforms, ways to provide higher quality care at lower costs, improve beneficiary education and understanding of benefits offered.

INCREASED RESEARCH FUNDING
* Provides $6 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support cancer research, with a goal of ultimately doubling the funding for cancer research. This builds on the $10 billion dollars from the Recovery Act given to the NIH.
* Supports research and treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorder with a $211 million investment

SUPPORT FOR FAMILIES AND YOUTH
* Expands Access to health care for American Indians and Alaska Natives with $4 billion dollars for the Indian Health Service.
* Creates the Nurse Home Visitation program, which gives funds to States to provide home visits by nurses to first-time, low-income mothers and mothers-to be.

REDUCING THE COST OF HEALTH CARE
* Establishes a competitive system for Medicare Advantage in which Medicare payments would be based on the market average
* Reduces drug prices by increasing access to generic drugs and prevent ever-greening (reformulating existing products into new products)
* Decreases Medicare and Medicaid fraud
* Decreases hospital readmission rates by providing hospitals additional funds to care for patients post-discharge and incentives to prevent readmission
* Establishes Pay for Performance
* Supports comprehensive reforms to the payment formula (increasing incentives quality and efficiency)

A summary of the budget proposal can be found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/fy2010_factsheets/fy10_health_human_services.pdf.
The full budget proposal can be found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/fy2010_new_era/Department_of_Health_and_Human_Services1.pdf.