I’m obviously sympathetic to publicly funded health research. My career depends on it. So, I can’t in any unbiased way write about the Labor/HHS appropriation bill that’s headed for a vote in the House. I wouldn’t tell you how you should feel about a pending piece of legislation anyway.
But, I can tell you a bit about what’s in it and let you make your own decision. Here’s a quick summary from AcademyHealth:
[I]t completely eliminates the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (Sec. 227), and prohibits any patient-centered outcomes research (Sec. 217) and all economic research within the National Institutes of Health (Page 57, line 19).
The bold is mine. Some other things of relevance:
- Health care spending is over one-sixth of our economy. Some might think that makes it worthy of a little research.
- Health (and some other types of) research is a public good, the funding of which is the role of government.
- The text of the appropriations bill is here.
- My prior post on this subject is here.
