Healthcare Priorities of President Biden’s FY23 Budget

March 31, 2022

On Monday, March 28, President Biden announced his budget for FY23, a $5.8 trillion proposal that reflects the administration’s funding priorities, many of which were drawn from the initial Build Back Better package. 

Congress is not required to adopt any or all of the president’s budget. However, each year, the president’s budget proposal serves as a starting point for the congressional budget process.

The budget includes a number of healthcare funding proposals, including $88.2 billion for bolstering pandemic preparedness and biodefense.

Provided below are some of the budget’s healthcare highlights.

Healthcare Highlights

$5 billion for the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, a biomedical research agency that would focus on diseases including cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s.

$88.2 billion for pandemic preparedness and biodefense. View White House fact sheet  HERE 

The pandemic/biodefense portion of the budget includes:

• $40 billion to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response to invest in advanced development and manufacturing of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics for high-priority threats. BIO strongly supports.
• $28 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to overhaul its health data.
• $9.9 billion for state and local health departments to boost capacity.
• $12.1 billion for NIH for R&D, for vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics against high-priority biological threats, including safe and secure laboratory capacity and clinical trial infrastructure.
• $1.6 billion for FDA to expand and modernize regulatory capacity, information technology, and laboratory infrastructure to support the evaluation of medical countermeasures.
• $828 million for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), $83 million above the FY22 enacted level.
• $975 million for the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), $130 million above the FY22 enacted level.

Additional Vaccine-Related Measures Include:

• $4.5 billion in seed funding to establish global, regional, and local capacity through a new financial intermediary fund at the World Bank focused on global health security and pandemic preparedness.
• A new Vaccines for Adults (VFA) program, which would provide uninsured adults with access to all vaccines recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at no cost.
• Expansion of the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program, to include all children under age 19 enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program and consolidate vaccine coverage under Medicare Part B, making more preventive vaccines available at no cost to Medicare beneficiaries.