President Barack Obama signed a temporary funding measure Saturday to keep the government operating through Dec. 23, until he is able to enact a final budget bill.
Signing the temporary legislation will give Obama time to enact a final $915 billion spending bill that the Senate cleared on Saturday.
The legislation folds nine appropriations bills into one conference report, and provides federal funding for government agencies—including about $69.7 billion for HHS—through Sept. 30, 2012.
Patient advocates celebrated the nearly $300 million increase in research funding for the National Institutes of Health included in the bill.
Separately, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) released a statement Sunday blasting the opposition to a temporary extension of tax cuts and Medicare pay rates that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced in a Sunday morning interview.
Reid said the two-month patch to extend Social Security tax cuts and Medicare's current physician pay rates, both set to expire at the end of year, was the result of a bipartisan compromise. The two-month freeze on Medicare physician pay rates would avert a 27.4% cut and give congressional negotiators time to produce a one-year or longer patch.
“If Speaker Boehner refuses to vote on the bipartisan compromise that passed the Senate with 89 votes, Republicans will be forcing a thousand-dollar tax increase on middle class families on Jan. 1,” Reid said.
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