Congressional leaders released the long-awaited $1.3 trillion, two-year omnibus spending bill after days of wrangling behind closed doors over contentious policies that included an embattled stabilization package for the individual market that would fund cost-sharing reduction payments and a $30 billion reinsurance pool. Here's what did and did not make it into the bill.
Total HHS appropriation: $88 billion
Winners:
Insurers that fought to keep a new policy that phases down their share of the cost of prescription drugs not covered by Medicare while raising it for drugmakers.
The National Institutes of Health, which received a $3 billion boost in funding, bringing its total budget to more than $37 billion.
Opioid addiction abatement efforts, which received $500 million to develop alternative pain medications. HHS also received $3.6 billion to fight drug abuse.
Rural communities, which will see a hefty $135 million increase in healthcare program funding, including $100 million for drug addiction treatment and prevention.
Telehealth in rural areas will get a boost in grants and HHS' total spending on rural communities will be $290.8 million.
Community health centers will receive a $135 million increase over last year to expand addiction prevention and treatment services as well as access to overdose reversal drugs.
Providers would see a quicker resolution to their Medicare appeals as Congress funnels $182 million toward reducing a backlog of more than 500,000 appeals.
Children's providers will get a boost in their reimbursement rates under the Child Care and Development Block Grant, which got a major $2.4 billion increase over last year. The Children's Hospitals Graduate Medical Education Payment Program will get a $15 million boost to support pediatric medical training.
Abstinence-only sex education gets $25 million in state grants.
Flu prevention. Congress is increasing funds to combat the flu by $218 million, a 68% boost, to improve the response to pandemic flu and ramp up research to develop a universal flu vaccine.
Losers:
Insurers that had been optimistic following the weekend's negotiations for CSRs and reinsurance.
The Affordable Care Act, which now faces several attempts to limit data or grant opportunities related to the legislation.
Drugmakers, who wanted to offload some of their newfound financial liability for the Medicare Part D donut hole back to insurers.