2008-01-01

Congress Passes Six-Month Delay of Physician Payment Cut

At the end of December, Congress and the President agreed to provide physicians with a temporary reprieve from the scheduled 10.1 percent payment rate cut that was to go into effect January 1, 2008, and increase Medicare physician fees by .5 percent until July 1, 2008. The legislative fix comes as a part of the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007 (S. 2499), which extends several programs that provide higher Medicare reimbursement rates to rural health-care providers and hospital laboratories. The legislation, however, does not address future physician fee cuts, which means the 10.1 percent cut will go back into effect after six months in the absence of additional Congressional action.

Congress Approves $133 Million Increase for NIH

After much debate, the Congress and the President finally agreed on an omnibus budget package for fiscal year 2008 that "hews closely to the White House's budget limits but shifts billions of dollars to the Democratic majority's priorities." Under the package, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) receives $28.942 billion, an increase of $133 million (+.46 percent). This includes a $294.7 million transfer to the Global AIDS Fund. The legislation provides $495.6 million for the NIH Common Fund, an increase of $12.6 million (+2.61 percent). These budget numbers are disturbing as they do not even keep pace with biomedical inflation (expected to be 3.7 percent).

In February, President Bush will release his proposed FY 2009 budget. ASH will launch grassroots campaigns to increase NIH funding appropriately and will keep the membership abreast of all developments through The Hematologist, the ASH Web site, and the electronic newsletter The Advocacy Update.

NIH Issues Anemia of Inflammation and Chronic Disease Program Announcement

Four Institutes of the NIH have joined together in a program announcement (PAS-08-019) on "Anemia of Inflammation and of Chronic Disease" (AICD). The announcement was published in the NIH Guide to Grants and Contracts (November 2, 2007). Responsive R01 applications will be accepted on standard receipt dates, beginning in February 2008. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) has been joined by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the National Institute on Aging (NIA) in announcing this program. The purpose of the program is to promote research that will lead to a better understanding of the pathophysiology of AICD and improved methods of detection, prevention, and treatment of this common form of anemia.

The program's objective is to support research that leads to a better understanding of signaling pathways and regulatory mechanisms that affect the expression of hepcidin, ferroportin, hemojuvelin, DMT-1, and other factors involved in iron metabolism, and the development of new therapeutic strategies for AICD that may overcome erythropoietin resistance in this disorder. Other research objectives include a better understanding of how aging affects erythroid cell response to erythropoietin, iron metabolism, and red blood cell survival, and clearance, as well as a better understanding of the causes of anemia associated with hematologic and solid tumor malignancies, unrelated to cancer chemotherapy.

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