House approves 21st Century Cures Act: 5 things to know

If the bill sails through the House and Senate, as some analysts expect, it could reach President Obama’s desk before the end of the year.

The medical device industry, which makes up a critical chunk of Minnesota’s economy, welcomed the bill.

The bill, known as the 21st Century Cures Act, has widespread bipartisan support, including the backing of the Obama administration.

· Provides $4.8 billion for the National Institutes of Health over the next 10 years, including $1.8 billion for cancer research, which would be distributed over the next five years. Others provisions preserve options for private insurance coverage, such as the Small Business Health Care Relief Act that allows firms with less than 50 employees to utilize health reimbursement arrangements without the penalty that is now imposed by the Affordable Care Act. While most of that money would go to treatment facilities, some would fund research.

Supporters say the bill will spur medical innovation, speed access to new devices and drugs, expand access to mental health treatment and battle the opioid epidemic.

Patient groups. Specialty disease and patient advocacy groups supported the legislation and lobbied vigorously. “Most of the money won’t really be there unless future congresses passes future bills in future years to spend those dollars”.

Patient groups and drug and medical device companies have been pushing for the legislation for more than a year.

“Coupled with the new CARA law and additional funding I’ve helped secure through the appropriations process, I believe this will make a real difference for those who are suffering from addiction, their families and all of our partners working to combat this disease”, Portman said.

Health information technology and software companies. In addition to increasing transparency for experimental drug access programs, compassionate use policies and clinical trials enrollment criteria for rare disease treatment, it will solidify ongoing developments of hospital outpatient clinics and pave the way for innovative research programs to take hold at NIH. The final Cures Act included several provisions from Sen.

McClellan is also happy to see that the legislation gives the FDA more latitude to consider the needs and views of patients when weighing judgments.

Since that speech, Warren said the bill had moved in “substantially better direction” and attributed its wide support (particularly from the nine Democratic representatives from her home state) to those changes.

Some patient advocates cautioned that the bill curtailed the scope of safety and effectiveness testing in ways that could eventually injure people the law was supposed to help.

The act says Medicaid would no longer help pay for drugs that help patients restore hair.

“Congress should not rush to pass this almost 1,000 page bill before there is time to thoroughly review it and understand the public health consequences”, Public Citizen said in a statement. It reforms and modernizes our nation’s regulatory infrastructure, getting rid of unnecessary red tape at the Food and Drug Administration.