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Category: Health/Medical

Census Bureau Modifies Policies and Timelines on Info from Higher Education

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As part of the census process every 10 years, colleges and universities are required to collect and provide certain pieces of information about their student population to the Census Bureau. 2020 is a census year.

For the census, college students living in on-campus housing are counted through their university as part of the bureau’s Group Quarters Operation. Due to the impact of COVID-19 on colleges and universities, the Census Bureau issued a statement on Monday highlighting several modifications to the policies and timelines it had in place for the census.  The statement reads, in part, as follows:

  • In general, students in colleges and universities temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 virus will still be counted as part of this process.  Even if they are home on census day, April 1, they should be counted according to the residence criteria which states they should be counted where they live and sleep most of the time. We are asking schools to contact their students and remind them to respond.
  • Per the Census Bureau’s residence criteria, in most cases students living away from home at school should be counted at school, even if they are temporarily elsewhere due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The full statement from the Census Bureau is available here.

 

Senator Murray Unveils Bill to Help Schools Address COVID-19

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US Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) unveiled today a $2.7 Billion package aimed to assist schools and colleges with providing for student needs amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Senator Murray is the Ranking Member on both the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, as well as the Appropriations subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.

The Supporting Students in Response to Coronavirus Act would provide over $1 Billion to ensure college students have access to food, housing, child care, and other basic needs, as well as help institutions prepare for closures and pay cleaning fees. The bill would also ensure students do not have to pay back financial aid if they are forced to withdraw, and gives the Department of Education more flexibility regarding financial aid. Additionally, the proposal would help staff childcare centers and increase funds for the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. The bill is cosponsored by Democratic Leader Senator Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Gillibrand (D-NY).

Read the full story at Forbes.

House Passes Supplemental, Senate to Pass Soon

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Last night, the House passed, 415-2, the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020 (H.R. 6074) to provide emergency supplemental funding in response to the novel coronavirus. The Senate is expected to pass today.

The package is $8.3 billion, which lawmakers released hours before the vote, and it has $7.8 billion in new funding for programs and agencies within the HHS, Small Business Administration, and State Department. Additionally, the legislation includes a $500 million provision related to telehealth.

The Senate is expected to consider the legislation today.

The President has said he will sign the measure.

The bill has:

  • $2.2 billion, available through September 2022, for the CDC, including:
    • $950 million in grants and cooperative agreements for state/local surveillance, epidemiology, laboratory capacity, infection control, mitigation, communications, and other preparedness and response ($475 million that would be available/allocated within 30 days of enactment).
    • At least $300 million for global disease detection and emergency response.
    • $300 million for the Infectious Diseases Rapid Response Reserve Fund.
    • The ability for CDC to use such funds to support grants for construction, alteration, or renovation of non-Federally owned facilities to improve state/local preparedness and response capability.
    • Additional funding for existing public health preparedness grants (that should be funded at not less than 90% of previous funding levels).
  • $836 million, available through September 2024, for the NIH, including:
    • $826 million for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus domestically or internationally.
    • $10 million transferred from NIAID to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for worker-based training to prevent and reduce exposure of hospital employees and other first responders.
  • $3.1 billion, available through September 2024,  for the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund to support, among other activities:
    • Development and purchase of necessary countermeasures and vaccines.
    • Purchase of vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and necessary medical supplies, including for potential deposit in the Strategic National Stockpile (with an additional $300 million in contingency funding to purchase additional products if needed).
    • Grants for construction, alteration, or renovation of non-Federally owned facilities to improve state/local preparedness and response capability.
  • $61 million, available until expended, for the Food and Drug Administration to support:
    • Development of medical countermeasures and vaccines.
    • Advanced manufacturing for medical products.
    • Monitoring of medical supply chains.
  • Authority for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to waive, under the public health emergency declaration for the novel coronavirus, certain current telehealth requirements by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
  • ~$2.5 billion (distributed around) for State, CDC and USAID for international support and response to COVID-19.

 

House Passes FY2020 Appropriations Measures

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The House passed two spending packages of nearly $1.4 trillion to fund federal agencies through FY20. The current federal funding continuing resolution expires at midnight Friday.

The Senate is expected to clear the pair of bills for President Donald Trump’s signature later this week.

The bipartisan agreement provides $49 billion in extra funding across the government and includes sweeping policy provisions, including to raise the legal age of tobacco purchases to 21, reauthorize PCORI, extend the Ex-IM bank for seven years, and repeal of several health taxes in Obamacare.

The FY2020 Deal

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After weeks of negotiations, Congressional leaders released last evening the long-awaited texts of the FY2020 appropriations bills.

As we noted before, the 12 bills were combined into two massive legislative packages.  The first package is the “defense” package and consists of the Defense, Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), Financial Services-General Government, and Homeland Security measures.  The second “non-defense” package consists of the remaining spending bills—Labor-HHS-Education (LABOR-HHS), Agriculture, Energy and Water, Interior, Legislative Branch, Military Construction, State-Foreign Operations, and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development—and a host of other bills and provisions of policy importance but not directly related to appropriations.

The House is expected to vote and pass the measures today, and the Senate is expected to pass both measures by Thursday, prior to the Continuing Resolution expiring.

The President is expected to sign the measures.

We will provide additional details throughout the week.  Here is an initial breakdown of how various agencies and programs would fare in FY2020 under this package of bills. This post will be updated.

LABOR-HHS

National Institutes of Health

  • Overall: $41.7 billion (including $492 million from 21st Century Cures Act)—increase of $2.6 billion
    • $2.8 billion for Alzheimer’s research
    • $3.1 billion for HIV/AIDS research
    • $500 million for Precision Medicine
    • $500 million for BRAIN Initiative
    • $195 million for Cancer Moonshot
  • Fogerty: $80.76 million and increase of $2.65 million

HRSA

  • Title VII Health Professions and Title VIII Nursing workforce development programs receive  $684.5 million — a $42.8 million (7%) increase.
    • The legislation includes first-time funding for the Loan Repayment Program for Substance Use Disorder Treatment Work and Mental and Substance Use Disorder Workforce Training Demonstrations within the Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training program

CDC

  • Overall:  $8 billion – increase of $636 million
  • NIOSH: $342 million– increase of $6.5 million

Other HHS items of note:

  • The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund, which funds the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), is reauthorized through FY2029.
  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is level funded at $338 million.
  • The Administration is prohibited from lowering F&A rates.
  • NIH salary caps remain at Executive Level II.
  • $25 million for gun research. Out of the $25 million set aside, $12.5 will be from the CDC and the other $12.5 will come from the NIH. The Dickey amendment language remains in place and CDC cannot use the funding to lobby in favor of gun control.
  • Delay scheduled Medicaid DSH allotment reductions through May 22, 2020

Department of Education

  • Pell Grants: maximum award of $6,345 – increase of $150
  • SEOG: $865 million – increase of $25 million
  • Federal work study: $1.18 billion – increase of $50 million
  • TRIO: $1.09 billion – increase of $30 million
  • GEAR-UP: $365 million – increase of $5 million
  • GAANN: $23 million – level funded
  • Institute for Education Sciences: $623.5 million – increase of $8 million
  • International Education/ Title VI programs: $76.1 million – increase of $4 million

Also, the measure would require the Department of Education to brief Congress on how they are administering of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Temporary Extended Public Loan Forgiveness programs.

Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS): $252 million — increase of $10 million

CJS

National Science Foundation

  • Overall: $8.278 billion – increase of $203 million
  • Research and Related Activities: $6.737 billion – increase of $217 million
  • Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction: $243.23 million – decrease of $52.5 million
  • Education and Human Resources: $940.0 million – increase of $30 million

NASA

  • Overall: $22.63 billion – an increase of$1.13 billion
  • Space Grant: $48.0 million – increase of $4 million

NOAA

  • Overall: 3.76 billion – increase of $167 million
  • NOAA Climate Research: $169.5 million – increase of $10.5 million
    • Climate Research Cooperative Institutes: $66.5 M – increase of $5.5 million
  • Integrated Ocean Observing System Regional Operations: $39.5 million—increase of $0.5 million
  • Sea Grant: $87 million total, including Aquaculture – increase of $6 million
    • Aquaculture: $13 million – increase of $1 million

 

INTERIOR

  • Overall: $13.5 billion – increase of $545 million
  • USGS (part of Interior):  $1.27 billion increase – of $110.4 million 
  • Climate Adaptation Science Centers: $38.3 million – increase of $13.0 million
  • Cooperative Research Units: $24 million – increase of $5.5 million
  • ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning: $19 million – increase of $2.9 million, plus an additional $6.7 million for infrastructure
  • EPA: $9.06 billion  – increase of $208 million
  • EPA Science: $716.4 million
    • EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grant program: $6 million
    • $6 million for Harmful Algal blooms
  • National Endowment for the Arts: $162.25 million – increase of $7.25 million
  • National Endowment for the Humanities: 162.25 million – increase of $7.25 million

 

ENERGY

  • Overall: $38.586 billion – increase of $2.9 billion
  • Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy: $425 million – increase of $59 million
  • Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: $2.79 billion – increase of $411 million
  • Office of Science: $7 billion – increase of $415 million
    • $71 million for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning across the six Office of Science programs
    • $195 million for Quantum Information Sciences including
      • $120 million to carry out a basic research program on quantum information science
      • $75 million for the establishment of up to five National Quantum Information Science Research Centers
  • Fusion Energy Sciences Research: $414 million — reduction from $432 million

 

Other Items of Note:

  • Repeal of the parking tax: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) tax on employer provided parking and transportation benefits as unrelated business income.
  • Repeal of the “kiddie” tax: (taxing nonqualified scholarship amounts for minors at the higher, trust rate rather than nominal tax rate).  This glitch in TCJA caused a child’s unearned income over $2,100 to subsequently be taxed at the trusts and estates rate instead of their parents’ top marginal tax rate, including taxable scholarship amounts.
  • Retroactive reinstatement and extension of the above-the-line tuition deduction, which expired at the end of 2017.  The bill reinstates the deduction from 12/31/2017 until 12/31/2020.