bioscience corner

The American Rescue Plan Act, also known as the COVID-19 Stimulus Package or just ARPA totals $1.9 trillion and funds key COVID response efforts, highlights of which include:

Health, Education and Labor:

• $7.5 billion for vaccine distribution
• $5.2 billion for BARDA vaccine and supplies
• $48.2 billion for testing
  
• $1.733 billion for enhanced genomic sequencing
  
• $7.6 billion for community health centers
  
• $7.66 billion to bolster the public health workforce with 23% leaving state and local health departments since 2008 and one-fourth across the country being eligible for retirement now
  
• $125 billion for public K-12 schools to safely reopen with $122.747 billion for the Elementary and Secondary School Education Relief Fund (ESSER), 90% of which states must subgrant to school districts to implement public health protocols and address students’ learning loss with 1% required to pay for evidence-based afterschool and summer programming
  
• $39.6 billion to colleges and universities as some 650,000 institution jobs were lost since the pandemic started
  
• $39 billion for child care, including $24 billion for Child Care Stabilization grants for some 449,000 child care providers serving 7.3 million children and $15 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG)
  
• Funding is provided to address family violence, LIHEAP and water assistance, and to help museums, libraries and cultural organizations forced to shut down most of 2020
  
• Option to states to provide 1-year of post-partum Medicaid coverage, following IL’s waiver
  

On April 9, President Biden unveiled key principles and priorities for his $1.5 trillion FY2022 budget that he will release in May. The Office of Management and Budget instructed in sharing the budget with Congress that now is the time to not simply revert to pre-pandemic life, but to instigate change that finally addresses racial and health disparities, economic barriers to growth for individuals, businesses and communities, and infrastructure problems facing every part of the country. Again, the priorities center around COVID-19 response and infrastructure building for any public health emergency as well as systemic change to address problems that have lingered for years impacting health, education, workforce and economic growth. It includes the largest investment in environmental justice in history with new Accelerating Environmental and Economic Justice initiative at the EPA. Also, while the Department of Defense would receive a small increase, it would redirect significant funds toward research and development. That same drive for innovation is placed within a new agency he is launching out of the Office of Science Technology Policy and NIH called ARPA-H to fund R&D to drive transformational health innovations that tackle gaps far too long neglected in our system and implement health breakthroughs with initial emphasis placed on cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s. Some other highlights include:

Domestic Budget - $769 billion (16% increase from FY2021)

Defense Budget - $753 billion (1.7% increase from FY2021)

Health:

• $8.7 billion for the CDC – the largest increase in 20 years
• $1.6 billion for the Community Mental Health Services Block Grant – twice the FY2021 level of funding
• $51 billion for NIH, which includes $6.5 billion for the new ARPA-H initiative to fund R&D for accelerated translational innovation in health
  
• $10.7 billion to address opioids -- $3.9 billion above FY2021
  

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