NIH Budget Remains Flat Under Trump Budget

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) would see roughly flat funding if the President’s fiscal year (FY) 2019 budget request were enacted as proposed. The White House has requested $34.8 billion for NIH, approximately $2 billion below the 2018 enacted appropriation. Late adjustments to the budget reversed an originally proposed 27 percent cut to NIH. The FY 2019 budget for NIH is slated to increase only slightly by $538 million over 2017 levels because it would absorb three agencies under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that fund research on healthcare quality, occupational health, and disabilities. According to the proposal, the institutes would function as separate entities at first, but their activities could later be integrated into NIH’s existing institutes. The National Institute for Research on Safety and Quality would replace the $324-million Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality within HHS, a move that was also proposed in Trump’s 2018 budget and was rejected by the House and Senate. The plan would also transfer the National Institute of Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health into the NIH. The budget request for HHS details two initiatives to “stretch” NIH research funding. First, capping the percentage of salary investigators can draw from an NIH grant at 90 percent and reducing maximum salary paid with NIH grant funds from $187,...
Source: Public Policy Reports - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: news