House budget would keep NIH flat

The U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee's labor, HHS and education subcommittee released the markup of a FY13 appropriations bill that would allocate $30.6 billion for NIH, roughly matching the FY12 level and the President's request. The House bill includes provisions aimed at preventing implementation of the Affordable Care Act, including rescinding prior-year mandatory funds and prohibiting use of new discretionary funding to implement the legislation.

The House bill would eliminate the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and would prevent any funds raised by the bill from being used to support patient-centered outcomes research at HHS. The President's budget had requested $409 million for AHRQ. The bill also would cut about $150 million from the $320 million budget for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). ...