House GOP Proposes Austere FY14 Appropriations Plan

Late yesterday, the House Republicans released new spending targets for FY14 appropriations bills. Under the GOP numbers, the Labor-HHS-ED bill will face a nearly 20 percent reduction on top of the cuts already made in the March 1st sequestration order. These programs would be capped at $121.8 billion — or about $28 billion below the… Read More


HRSA Announces Funding to Help Veterans Pursue Nursing

Accredited nursing schools and health care facilities can apply through June 7 for up to $350,000 a year in funding to increase veterans’ enrollment in baccalaureate nursing programs, and explore ways to award academic credit for prior military health care experience or training, the Health Resources and Services administration announced today. The agency expects to… Read More


Summary of President’s FY14 Budget Request

Yesterday, President Obama released his FY14 budget request — nearly two months later than required by law. Much of the delay was blamed on the sequester and the prolonged FY13 appropriations process that resulted in a year-long continuing resolution (CR). In a typical year, the President’s Budget Request (PBR) kicks off the annual appropriations season,… Read More


Sequestration Threatens Research Careers

John Slattery, Vice Dean for Research and Graduate Education at the University of Washington, speaks about how federal funding cuts (sequestration) will constrain potential advances in patient care and dampen students’ pursuit of research careers. Watch the video here.


NIH Prepares for Sequestration Implementation

As mentioned in our blog post yesterday, NIH Director Francis Collins announced that NIH IC directors will develop their own plans for how to apply sequestration cuts to their institutes and centers. This was followed by NIH’s official notice posted yesterday that due to sequestration,  NIH likely will reduce funding levels of non-competing continuation grants, make… Read More


McDermott Legislation Aims to Protect NIH from Sequestration

Yesterday, Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) introduced a bill to protect National Institutes of Health (NIH) from impending automatic federal budget cuts. The automatic budget cuts, or “sequester,” will cancel $85 billion in federal spending between March 1 and September 30, including roughly $2 billion from the NIH budget. McDermott’s bill would ensure that NIH’s budget… Read More


Today in Congress

The Senate is in at 10:00am and will vote on a number of amendments to and final passage of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (S 47). It is expected to pass. The Senate will recess from 12:30pm to 2:15pm for weekly party caucus lunches. The House returns at noon and will consider… Read More


Bill Introduced to Protect NIH from Sequestration

Today, Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) joined his colleagues to introduce a bill to stop the across-the-board budget cuts scheduled for March 1st with a balance of increased revenue and sensible investments. The Balancing Act will halt impending automatic federal budget cuts, known as “sequester,” which would threaten important national investments like those in medical research—a… Read More


GME Legislation Introduced

Yesterday Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Congressman Mike Thompson (D-CA) introduced the Primary Care Workforce Access Improvement Act of 2013 (HR 487).  Their bill promotes the training of primary care physicians in rural areas and tests innovative and cost-neutral ways to distribute graduate medical education (GME) payments for the purpose of increasing the number and… Read More


Sequestration would be a “Devastating Blow” to NIH

NIH Director Francis Collins calls the potential cuts from sequestration a “profound and devastating blow” for medical research. If Congress cannot find a way to achieve debt reduction without massive federal spending cuts, NIH will lose 6.4 percent of its budget this year.  This could hurt the availability of research grants.  Currently, 80 percent of… Read More