September 29, 2011—The full House Appropriations Committee today released a draft fiscal 2012 funding bill for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that would cut funding for the Office of Pharmacy Affairs (OPA) by roughly 50 percent, from $4.48 million to $2.21 million.
The draft bill and accompanying documents also appear not to mention the 0.1 percent user fee that Senate appropriators approved last week and that President Obama sought in his budget request for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The proposed levy on 340B drug purchases, which would be paid by providers and work out to a penny on every $10 dollars in sales, would generate an estimated $5 million annually for OPA program integrity efforts. That new revenue would be on top of OPA’s appropriated funds.
The House committee released the draft but did not vote it. A subcommittee mark up of the bill has not yet been scheduled.
Overall, HHS would get $70.2 billion in new discretionary budget authority, which is $200 million below the last year’s level and $2.8 billion percent below the President’s budget request.
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) would get $6.7 billion in new discretionary budget authority, which is $447 million above last year’s level but $89 million below the President’s budget request. Community health centers would get just under $2.6 billion in new money for fiscal 2012 but at the same time lose about $1.2 billion in fiscal 2011 funding that they received under health care reform. The committee said in a news release that the net result is that funding for health centers would be equal to last year’s $1.58 billion and that no centers would be closed as a result of the legislation.