FP Report -- December 1998 1998 Congress brought mixed results
The AAFP totaled up its victories and a few losses after the 105th Congress adjourned Oct. 21. Congress hiked funding for family medicine training and the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research -- as the AAFP requested.
Funds appropriated for family medicine training jumped from $49.2 million for the 1998 fiscal year to $51.1 million for 1999. The funds apply to programs covered by Title VII, Section 747 of the Public Health Service Act.
In a separate authorization bill, Congress provided a funding floor greater than the current year and maintained a set-aside for the specialty -- measures both in line with AAFP lobbying.
Congress appropriated $171 million for the AHCPR, a hefty $24.5 million increase from the current $146.5 million. The AAFP and other health care groups have lobbied for several years for a sharp increase for AHCPR.
However, Congress' appropriation for the subspecialty-oriented National Institutes of Health far overshadows funding for AHCPR, the only federal agency devoted to primary care research. NIH's new funding of $15.6 billion exceeds its current funding by $1.9 billion.
Congress acted in line with AAFP priorities in not adopting Medicare user fees, in not requiring parental notification for teens seeking contraceptives from federally funded clinics, in not acting on a bill that could penalize physicians for prescribing "lethal" drugs and in requiring federal employees' health plans to cover prescription contraceptives if the plans cover other prescriptions.
However, Congress fell short of several AAFP goals. Next year the Academy will continue to seek:
- comprehensive tobacco reform,
- patient rights/managed care reform and
- technical corrections to the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which includes graduate medical education provisions unintentionally problematic to family medicine.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department. Copyright © 1998 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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