Finally, some not so bad news from Congress.

The Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Committee voted 26-3 last week to advance its version of the appropriations bill for the public health and health care agencies, and it’s not all bad.

The Committee ignored Kennedy’s request to made huge cuts to many of the HHS agencies (a 42% cut to CDC and a 40% cut to NIH). Instead, the Committee bill protected some key funding for public health infrastructure:

  • Continued support for CDC programs focused on chronic disease, injury prevention (including firearm mortality research), global health, immunization, and infectious disease.
  • Preservation of the Office on Smoking and Health, an important source of prevention and education work.
  • Requires Kennedy to send a detailed plan and justification before reorganizing or transferring CDC functions.

The bill includes new accountability measures for the Payment Management System (PMS) and requires Kennedy to brief Congress on technical improvements and to notify the Committee any significant delays or outages.

Note: PMS is HHS’ system for disbursing and tracking grant payments to recipients, like universities, nonprofits, and state or local governments.

The House is currently in recess but is expected to begin marking up its LHHS bill in September.

The full committee summary is available for review.

The bill includes a total of $9.1B for CDC, a $70M (-$0.7%) cut compared to FY25:

  • $350M, or level funding for public health infrastructure and capacity.
  • $160M a decrease of $15M, for data modernization.
  • $735M (level funding) for public health emergency preparedness cooperative agreement.
  • $160M (level funding) for the Preventive Health and Health Services block grant.
  • $309M (an increase of $4M) for Health Care Readiness and Recovery (formerly the Hospital Preparedness Program).
  • $1B for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
  • $79M for the National Disaster Medical System.
  • $373M for the HRSA rural health programs.
  • $5M for CDC’s Office of Rural Health.
  • $534M for the SAMHSA’s suicide prevention Lifeline, 9-8-8.
  • $385M for Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics.
  • $2.2B for the National Institute of Mental Health.
  • $1B for the Mental Health Block Grant.
  • $180M for school-based mental health grants at the Dept of Education.

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