Policy Updates: Hill Happenings and Administration Activities
Hill Happenings
Lawmakers are working to achieve a bipartisan spending agreement on a Fiscal Year 2026 (FY2026) spending package by the September 30 funding deadline. The Congressional Republican caucus is leveraging their bicameral majority to advance subcommittee spending bills, which are likely to include proposals to reduce federal spending and reshape the public health infrastructure that were included in the Administration’s FY2026 President's Budget Request to Congress. The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS) scheduled a subcommittee markup for late July, and the House scheduled a subcommittee markup for July 21 and a full committee markup on the 24. However, House leadership postponed the markups with no immediate rescheduled date. Notably, the LHHS subcommittee may seek to include the President’s request to eliminate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) HIV prevention program, transform the programmatic structure of the CDC hepatitis, STI, TB, and infectious disease and opioids programs into a single, combined block grant, and consolidate entire Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies and operating divisions like the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to create a new HHS entity, the Administration for a Health America (AHA). On July 17, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (T-HUD) marked up its spending bill, approving flat-funding for the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) program despite major cuts that were proposed in the President’s budget. A full committee markup is scheduled for July 24.
Additionally, on July 18, Republicans approved the President’s rescissions request to Congress, which empowers the Executive branch to claw back $9 billion in Congressionally-approved funding for select programs that don’t align with White House policy priorities. Republicans removed a proposal to rescind funding for the HIV global aid program, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), after bipartisan backlash threatened to undermine the quorum needed to pass the rescissions vote. Democrats panned the appropriations and rescissions proposals and urged their GOP colleagues to uphold the bipartisan integrity of the legislative appropriations process and the Congressional power of the purse vested by the US Constitution. However, Russell Vought, Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), announced that the Administration will pursue additional rescissions requests to Congress after Republicans successfully approved the rarely used and controversial legislative procedure. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) warned the Republican conference that partisan tactics used to muscle through spending cuts, such as the Executive impoundment of appropriated funds, the paring down of safety-net health programs through the landmark budget reconciliation package that were ratified on July 4, and the latest rescissions package, will complicate appropriators’ ability to pass a bipartisan spending package for FY2026. Democrats are weighing their options to counter Republicans’ spending proposals, including raising the threat of a government shutdown on October 1 if Congress cannot pass a full-year FY2026 spending package or continuing resolution by September 30.
Administration Activities
SAMHSA Releases HCV Elimination NOFO
On July 15, SAMHSA issued a notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) to support prevention, testing, and treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in individuals with substance use disorder (SUD) or severe mental illness. The grant, tilted Hepatitis C Elimination Initiative Pilot or Hep C free, is a proof-of-concept program that aims to identify best practices for clinicians and health programs to leverage existing capacity in health care settings to more effectively identify people living with HCV, scale up linkage to treatment, and increase the rate of people who complete the HCV care cascade. The program includes a focus on reaching disproportionately impacted populations, including people experiencing homelessness. Applications will be accepted through August 1, 2025.
News Bulletin
Investigational Once-Weekly ART Combo Maintained Viral Suppression in HIV
“An investigational once-weekly oral antiretroviral therapy (ART) combination effectively maintained viral suppression in adults with HIV-1 through 24 weeks, according to a phase II study. Among participants with available data, all remained virologically suppressed with islatravir 20 mg and ulonivirine at dosages of 100 mg, 200 mg, or 400 mg, reported Jean-Michel Molina, MD, PhD, of the University of Paris Cité, at the International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Scienceopens in a new tab or window in Kigali, Rwanda.”
Republicans are ready to revive stalled health care legislation. Dems want the GOP to pay a price.
“Republicans are eyeing an opportunity to enact a bipartisan health package by the end of the year, but Democrats aren’t exactly in a deal-making mood. With the dust barely settled after enacting their party-line domestic policy megabill, GOP lawmakers on the Senate Finance, House Ways and Means and House Energy and Commerce committees are hoping they’ll have another shot this year at making policy changes to drug pricing long sought by both parties. It will be a litmus test for whether lawmakers can come together during President Donald Trump’s polarizing second term — and in the aftermath of the enactment of the Republican megabill, which included the steepest cuts to Medicaid in the program’s history.”
ICE will soon have nation’s Medicaid data: What to know
“The personal health information of 79 million people will soon be in the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, who will use the data trove to find undocumented migrants in the U.S. amid President Trump’s immigration crackdown. ICE plans to use the nation’s Medicaid database to “receive identity and location information on aliens identified by ICE,” according to an agreement obtained by The Associated Press.”
Resources
“Overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids including fentanyl increased during the past decade, with declines beginning in mid-2023. Data on nonfatal overdoses involving fentanyl are limited…Despite recent declining trends, fentanyl-involved nonfatal overdose ED visits remain high (a rate of 2.9 per 10,000 ED visits in Q1 2024, versus 1.4 in Q4 2020). ED interventions to increase naloxone access and availability and linkage to and retention in evidence-based care of persons who have experienced an overdose could reduce future nonfatal and fatal overdoses.”