INSIDE THE HHS FUNDING BILL — House Republicans want to cut the HHS fiscal 2025 budget by 7 percent, which includes eliminating programs related to health and climate change. The Republican Party outlined its plans for the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill Tuesday in a House Appropriations Committee report ahead of a full markup today. The report explains how the GOP intends to allocate $107 billion for HHS, which is $14 million less than what the White House requested for 2025. The bill includes a number of controversial proposals likely to rile House Democrats, including: — Slashing Title X family grants funding — Eliminating certain CDC programs, including the agency’s injury prevention program, which focuses on reducing domestic violence, violence against children and overdoses and some climate change and health surveillance work “to restore public confidence and better focus CDC on controlling and preventing communicable diseases,” per the report — Requiring the CDC to include in its data reporting on fertility clinics the number of fertilized eggs typically created during an in vitro fertilization cycle as well as how many of those embryos are destroyed, whether accidentally or intentionally, echoing an ask by Senate Republicans — Barring federal dollars from being used to promote abortion or reproductive rights information and information on gender-affirming care — Restructuring the NIH The bill also includes a funding increase for provider training and loan repayment programs, emerging and zoonotic disease prevention and substance use disorder programs — though Republicans said they wouldn’t fund certain harm-reduction programs they say encourage illegal drug use. Read more about what’s in the bill here. WHERE THE FIGHTS MIGHT BE — House Democrats on an appropriations subcommittee have said they’ll push back on some proposals in the bill — including those that would limit reproductive health care access and shrink the NIH. Here are the other appropriations matchups brewing: — The appropriations bill seeks to block HHS from implementing a final rule requiring nursing homes to meet minimum staffing requirements. It’s the latest in a series of efforts by lawmakers to stop the rule that’s unpopular among the long-term care industry that argues it would exacerbate staffing shortages. Labor groups and patient advocates, however, have said opposition to the rule is antiworker and would harm patient safety. On Tuesday, a coalition of 50 labor organizations wrote to Congress, urging them to drop legislative attempts to block the rule. — The bill also cuts funding for HIV/AIDs prevention and treatment programs, a measure that has alarmed more than 200 HIV/AIDS groups who’ve been pushing Congress to reconsider. Those groups opposed cuts to these same programs in last year’s budget process. Those cuts were later reversed, and funding remained level.
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