2009-07-01

White House & Congress Push Forward With Health-Care Reform and Physician Payment Proposals

As this issue of The Hematologist was going to press, the Obama administration had announced the names of several White House and Department of Health & Human Services staff who would be working on health reform, and President Obama had reiterated his commitment to enacting meaningful health reform by the end of the year. In contrast to the health-care reform effort during the Clinton administration, when special interest groups opposed health reform, a coalition of health plans, pharmaceutical manufacturers, the American Medical Association, and unions had come together to find savings to finance the health-reform effort. Meanwhile, in the House and Senate, committees were developing their proposals, and several groups within the House and Senate had begun championing specific components of the health reform package. Controversy is expected to increase as specific proposals are unveiled and negotiated.

ASH has been involved in physician payment issues and the need to protect access to specialists. In May, ASH submitted comments to the Senate that focused on the following concerns:

• The need to maintain policies that ensure that patients have direct access to hematologists, allowing for the provision of high-quality and effective care for blood-related disorders
• The need to recognize the value of cognitive services and improve Medicare payment for these services
• The importance of not establishing policies that increase payment to primary-care services by reducing payment for other cognitive services
• The need to eliminate the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate formula and provide physicians with an adequate annual update in fees

NRC Recommends Continued Use of Existing Secured Cesium Chloride Sources Over Immediate Phase-Out

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has directed the agency’s staff to seek continual enhancement of the security of cesium chloride radiation sources while encouraging research and further technological developments for alternative chemical forms of cesium-137. The NRC’s analysis and conclusions adopt the recommendations that ASH presented in comments to the NRC in September 2008, when the Society expressed concern about the possibility of phasing out cesium-137 chloride irradiators and urged the NRC not to initiate any regulation that would adversely affect biomedical research and patient care. The Commission noted that “near-term replacement of cesium chloride sources in existing blood, research, and calibration irradiators is not practicable and would be harmful to the delivery of medical care, research, and emergency response capabilities.”

ASH Comments on NIH Draft Guidelines on Human Stem Cell Research

In May, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) requested comments on draft guidelines concerning human stem cell research. The proposed guidelines were developed in response to President Obama’s March 9 Executive Order to lift previous restrictions on federally funded human embryonic stem cell research. ASH has long been active in supporting stem cell research and has been a vocal proponent of the use of regenerative medicine to cure disease and alleviate suffering. ASH submitted comments to NIH commending them for taking an important step to increase the number of stem cell lines available for federal funding and made several recommendations to ensure continued development of the field of stem cell research. To read ASH’s comments, please visit the ASH Web site at www.hematology.org/policy/testimony.

President Obama Unveils Details of Proposed FY 2010 Budget; ASH Advocates for NIH Funding Increase

On May 7, President Obama released the details of his fiscal year (FY) 2010 budget proposal, which includes funding for NIH. For FY 2010, President Obama has proposed approximately $31 billion in funding for NIH, a 1.4 percent increase over the final FY 2009 funding levels that were enacted in March of this year. ASH is advocating for an increase of at least 7 percent for NIH in FY 2010 over its FY 2009 level.

Though the President’s budget request is simply a starting point for the annual budget process, Congress will take many of its policy proposals and funding recommendations into account as it undertakes the process of drafting the bills that will fund federal programs, including NIH, for FY 2010.

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