The House approved a massive, catch-all fiscal 2008 spending bill, 253-154, which funds HHS and 10 other federal Cabinet agencies. The Senate is expected to begin debate on the bill today.
The domestic spending bill includes more than $250 million in earmarks for 889 pet projects covering district hospitals, university medical centers, community health clinics and other healthcare-related services. It reverses several White House-championed cuts and adds roughly $5.5 billion more than President Bush's original budget blueprint for medical research, veterans' healthcare, community health centers and rural hospitals.
Overall, the bill would fund HHS at $65.6 billion for fiscal 2008, about $1.5 billion more than the department's 2007 budget. Of that, federally funded community health centers would receive $2.1 billion or $77 million more than they did in 2007, and the 1,200 or so small and rural hospitals would receive $287 million to improve access and outreach efforts.
The bill would provide $43.1 billion for the Veterans Affairs Department, or $6.6 billion more than its 2007 dollars and $3.7 billion more than the president’s request. The lion's share of the total allocation, $37.2 billion, is earmarked for the Veterans Health Administration. The VA estimates it will treat more than 5.8 million patients in 2008, including more than 263,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan—54,000 more than fiscal 2007.
The $516 billion omnibus bill, which includes the budgets for 11 of the 12 Cabinet departments, stays largely within Bush's demands. -- by Matthew DoBias
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