Healthcare Programs to Receive Major Boost From Omnibus Spending Bill

The new $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill features a $3 billion increase for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), bringing its budget to $37 billion for fiscal 2018, reports U.S. News & World Report . It also raises the Department of Health and Human Services' budget by $10 billion to $78 billion. The Senate passed the spending bill in the early morning hours of Friday, sending it to President Donald Trump's desk for his signature. Under the measure, almost $4 billion more would be invested in opioid addiction, while $1 billion in grants is allocated to states and tribal groups for treatment and prevention and $476 million to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for opioid overdose monitoring, a $350 million hike over fiscal 2017. In addition, $500 million will go to NIH for research on addiction support. The budget for Alzheimer's disease research will go up $414 million, $140 million more will go toward brain research, and the total spent on research for a universal flu vaccine will rise by $40 million, for a total of $100 million. "As we confront daunting health challenges from Alzheimer's disease to the opioid epidemic, it is our responsibility as a nation to advance the discovery, development, and delivery of new treatments for patients anxiously waiting for the next medical breakthrough," says Research!America CEO Mary Woolley. "The increase will enable the NIH to expand and sustain innovative initiatives that will deepen our understanding of complex diseases, furthering efforts to eradicate many of these health threats."