WASHINGTON — Early this week, Republicans and Democrats reached an agreement on a significant health care policy package, from reining in drug industry middlemen to raising pay for doctors.
The package was intended to supplement an emergency law at the end of the year, which must be passed today to avoid a government shutdown. Instead, newly elected President Trump and close adviser Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, killed the government’s quarterly funding bill, taking health policy with them.
When House Republicans returned with a trimmed proposal, the health package included only expansions for basic public health programs. Gone was a long list of health policy measures, including pay increases for doctors and reforms to pharmacy benefit managers.
But that’s not what angers Democrats most. Lawmakers and other officials focused their attacks instead on excluding provisions to help children with cancer, a part of the original deal that had received less attention. That response resulted in Congress passing one of the measures blocked in the spending deal as a stand-alone bill. The Senate passed the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act after passing legislation to fund the government through mid-March. Gabriella Miller’s bill would give the National Institutes of Health $63 million over five years to research cancer and childhood diseases, said Ellyn Miller, founder of the Smashing Walnuts Foundation, which pushed for the bill, which is named after her daughter who died of cerebral hemorrhage. cancer.
But Congress did not approve any other childhood cancer research measures that had been cut from the government funding bill.
Prior to the final approval of the Public Finance Act. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) the Republicans chided for their proposal to “cut cancer treatments for children and create a new tax cut for the rich.”
White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a post on social media platform X that Republicans dropped measures against childhood cancer ‘because the richest man in the world had a whim’.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) also targeted Musk for losing child cancer relief.
“We now know what it looks like when Elon Musk calls for ‘government efficiency’. For starters? Cuts in funding for childhood cancer research. I wish I made that up,” Warren said.
It is not clear why Republicans dropped the health care package. The cost of the package was offset, according to a Congressional cost estimate reviewed by STAT. So it wasn’t the cost itself that led to it being gutted.
Instead, Republicans appear to want to avoid adding new programs to a bill that expands funding for existing programs for the current year. On the other hand, Trump pushed for an increase in the debt ceiling, which would not fit the definition of a “clean, continuing resolution.” That measure was omitted from the final bill. For the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, the principle of keeping emergency government funding legislation simple trumps achieving policies that both parties agree on and that impose no additional costs.
Shortly before the government funding bill passed, Republican strategist Doug Heye said there simply wasn’t enough time to save the health care package. Heye worked for former Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who championed some childhood cancer research measures.
“A bill that can be passed is often seen as more important than what it says,” Heye said.
Following are the childhood cancer measures that Republicans excluded in the new Continuation Resolution Act:
- A program that rewards researchers for approval of childhood cancer drugs with valuable vouchers that require expedited Food and Drug Administration reviews of another drug application of any kind. The priority assessment voucher program would be extended until 2029.
- A program that allows children with cancer who are covered by Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program known as CHIP to receive treatment out of state.
- New authority for the FDA to fine companies if they fail to complete required pediatric studies. The FDA already has this authority for studies in adults.
- New FDA authority will require companies to study children’s drugs in combination with other treatments for the same disease when those treatments are owned by the same company or available as generics.