On March 11, President Trump released his proposed budget for fiscal year (FY) 2020, which outlines the administration’s policy priorities and proposes $87.1 billion in discretionary spending for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — a 12 percent reduction from the previous year.
An accompanying HHS document offers more details on the department’s spending and proposed changes to programs under the budget proposal.
The budget plan estimates $1.25 trillion in mandatory savings from health programs, including hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicare. It also would cut $4.5 billion from the National Institutes of Health and $1.27 billion from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Food and Drug Administration would get a $643 million funding increase.
Other proposals of interest to essential hospitals include:
- an overhaul of the Medicaid program, including expanded work requirements, new asset tests for eligibility, and options for states to implement a block grant or per-capita caps;
- new requirements for covered entities in the 340B Drug Pricing Program, including a user fee, required covered entity reporting of program savings, and expanded rulemaking authority for the Health Resources and Services Administration; and
- an expansion of site-neutral payment policies to include clinic visits at on-campus hospital outpatient departments and all outpatient services at grandfathered hospital off-campus departments.
Contact Senior Director of Policy Erin O’Malley at eomalley@essentialhospitals.org or 202.585.0127 with questions.
