Sadly, we all know someone who has been affected by cancer, Alzheimer’s, or addiction. Many of us also have loved ones afflicted with rarer diseases like Crohn’s, multiple sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s. Of the 10,000 known diseases, we only have cures for 500.
We can change that. We are the United States of America, and we are blessed with unparalleled innovators, researchers, scientists, and entrepreneurs who relish a challenge. Now is the time to unleash our innovative spirit to tackle some of the greatest medical challenges of our time.
Last week, I worked with my colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives to pass comprehensive, bipartisan, fiscally-responsible legislation to increase funding for medical research and streamline the process of bringing new treatments to patients. The 21st Century Cures Act, which I co-sponsored, also includes crucial mental health reforms and necessary funding to combat the opioid epidemic.
The 21st Century Cures Act:
— Provides the National Institutes of Health $4.8 billion to research and develop cures for diseases like Alzheimer’s and cancer.
— Streamlines and improves the FDA’s review of life-saving drugs to get these cures to patients in a safe and expedient manner.
— Authorizes $1 billion in state grants to fight the ongoing opioid addiction epidemic.
— Untangles the federal mental health bureaucracy to help patients and families in need.
— Spending is fully offset by budget cuts, creating no new burdens for hardworking taxpayers.
This bipartisan legislation will not create a new, federally-funded mandate like Social Security or Medicare, and the spending is not on “auto-pilot.” Funding is authorized for 10 years as discretionary spending and is fully offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget. In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the 21st Century Cures Act will reduce the deficit by $5.9 billion over the next 10 years.
These numbers don’t include the billions in potential future savings from curing some of the most costly diseases. For example, in 2016, Medicare and Medicaid will spend approximately $160 billion on Alzheimer’s, more than four times the annual budget for the NIH. Imagine the societal benefits if we cured Alzheimer’s and spent those dollars on further medical research.
American researchers are on the cusp of groundbreaking medical advances. Just a handful of these include:
— Cancer-illuminating googles enabling surgeons to see and remove all cancerous tissue.
— Bionic pancreas for people with Type 1 diabetes providing fully automated, 24/7 blood sugar maintenance.
— Bio-artificial kidney to eliminate the need for dialysis for patients with end stage renal disease.
— Tests to detect cancer at the earliest stages from the swab of a patient’s cheek.
These advances would not be possible without medical research funding, and many of them could get swamped in a bureaucratic mess at the FDA without regulatory reform.
This legislation will save lives. This legislation will reduce suffering. Long term, this legislation will save money as we find treatments for costly diseases. Bipartisan passage of this legislation marks the culmination of years of hard work to benefit the American people, and I will always remember the 21st Century Cures Act as some of the best legislation I ever co-sponsored.
This week, the U.S. House of Representatives also passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which provides $619 billion to appropriately fund our national defense in 2017. This bipartisan legislation includes the largest pay raise for our troops in six years, improvements to the military health care system, increased funding for critical training and readiness programs, and continues the prohibition on transferring radical Islamist terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to the United States.
