This week, Congress narrowly avoided a federal government shutdown and passed a short-term spending measure funding government programs until Dec. 20, 2019 which the President signed into law. Congress and the Administration now have until Dec. 20 to either finalize FY2020 spending or pass another short-term measure extending government spending into 2020. The measure also provides funding extensions through Dec. 20 for community health centers, the National Health Service Corps., the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), teaching health centers graduate medical education, and Medicaid funding for Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories.

In July, the full House of Representatives passed its FY2020 health spending bill which included a $2 billion funding increase for NIH. In September, the Senate Labor-Health and Human Services Appropriations subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Blunt (R-MO), which drafts and approves the Senate health spending bill, indefinitely postponed a subcommittee vote on the FY2020 health spending bill, but released the measure to the public. The Senate health spending bill includes a proposed $3 billion funding increase for NIH. We expect the Senate bill will move forward despite the lack of committee action. We are cautiously optimistic that NIH is slated for a funding increase of between $2-3 billion for 2020, but the timeframe for final resolution of FY2020 government spending is unclear.