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Funding for Medical Research

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is our country’s premier institution for medical research. It embodies our greatest hope for treating and curing debilitating conditions like lung and heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and many other illnesses. It is also our best hope for containing health care costs. A large portion of the projected increase in health care expenditures over the next two decades can be explained by the escalating costs associated with chronic diseases. I have co-signed a bipartisan letter to the appropriators urging a minimum of a 6.5 percent increase for NIH funding. We must invest in research today that will yield cures for tomorrow.
 
The extraordinary effort to double the investment in NIH has yielded a number of scientific advances that have improved health outcomes. Unfortunately, since the doubling ended in 2003, funding for NIH has failed to keep pace with biomedical inflation and as a result, the NIH has lost a significant amount of its purchasing power. Many of the benefits of doubling will be lost unless Congress continues to provide robust funding for health research.
 
Last year, Congress overwhelmingly supported legislation authorizing an annual increase in NIH funding for Fiscal Year 2007.   In 2007 Congress passed a Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (LHHS) appropriations bill that would have increased funding for NIH by 4%. Unfortunately, the President vetoed this bill and despite my vote to override his veto, the House did not have the two-thirds vote required to override. The LHHS bill was incorporated into the FY08 Omnibus Appropriations bill. I was disappointed that the Omnibus bill only increased NIH funding by 2 percent.